Keats: “When I have fears that I may cease to be”—Let’s repeat:

“When I have fears that I may cease to be”—Let us think of Keats.

“Before my pen glean’d my teeming brain”—The pen has gleaned.

“Before”—Not sure. “High piled books”—Where’s he look? He says, “in charactry.”

The image, the simile: “Hold like rich garners the full ripen’d grain”—Someone explain.

Got it wrong. Start over: “When I have”—fears? “That I may”—cease?

Start over. Let us read: “When I have”—Let us read.

“Before my pen”—What do we see?

Keats piling books. His pen gleaning his teeming, fearful brain.

Maybe he coughs.

“Rich garners”—Sounds like a name.

(Drop the ‘s’)

“Full ripen’d grain”—Let him ripen again.

“When I have.”

“Fears.”

“Cease.”

Glean.

“Cease to be”—Cease to be Keats.

Let us ripen, glean.

Let us glean Keats. Before we cease.

Before we cease to be.