When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be | 2010
– 3'45"
Baritone voice and piano
In contrast to the other two Keats poems I have set, When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be is decidedly more tonal in its musical language. John Keats, the poet, died at the age of 25 from tuberculosis. He knew of his untimely demise, and this poem reflects on his fears of premature death. In the first half he reflects on the poetry that would remain unwritten, that he would have left in him. In the latter half he mourns over the love that he would never see because of his premature end. He concludes with a timeless truth: "Love and Fame to nothingness do sink."
When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charactry,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the fairy power
Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
- John Keats (1818)
Jonathan Wall, baritone; Dr. Devon Howard, piano
Baritone voice and piano
In contrast to the other two Keats poems I have set, When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be is decidedly more tonal in its musical language. John Keats, the poet, died at the age of 25 from tuberculosis. He knew of his untimely demise, and this poem reflects on his fears of premature death. In the first half he reflects on the poetry that would remain unwritten, that he would have left in him. In the latter half he mourns over the love that he would never see because of his premature end. He concludes with a timeless truth: "Love and Fame to nothingness do sink."
When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charactry,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the fairy power
Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
- John Keats (1818)
Jonathan Wall, baritone; Dr. Devon Howard, piano
Derrada R. Rubell-Asbell, baritone; Taiko Pelick, piano