The speaker of the poem is Keats himself. He expresses
fear that he may die young. He is afraid that he will die before he is able to reach his
full potential as a poet or, “before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain.” He makes an
analogy between his production of poetry and the harvesting of grain. He wants to live
long enough to create high piles of books. Here, “charactery” means printing or writing.
His imagination is the grain and he, the poet, is the harvester. He wants to live long
enough to write (harvest) all his best thoughts but not until they are ripe. Note the
use of alliteration with g’s and r’s to combine this
analogy.
The speaker then worries that he may not live to
trace (write) the shadows of the symbols of romance. These shadows and symbols are his
Romantic and Idealistic perceptions of nature and the world. The speaker clearly is
thinking as a poet who wants to fulfill his potential. He wants fame, to be loved and
admired. He, at least, wants his poetry to be remembered after he is
gone.
While deriving inspiration from nature, he is also
inspired and loved by his beloved, whom he calls “fair creature of an hour” to
illustrate the fleeting nature of love and life (an hour). The speaker is concerned he
may not have enough time for poetry, fame and love.
After
considering all of this, he stands alone on the shore. The shore represents a border
between two worlds: land and sea. This is analogous to the border between two other
worlds: life and death/afterlife. He seems to conclude that, in the grand scheme of
things, his fears of losing love and fame are not as important as he
thought.
It is important to note that he ends up standing
alone: apart from the reaches of love and fame. He has some kind of epiphany but the
exact implications of that epiphany are ambiguous. He wants to sink his fears and be
less concerned with fame. It may just be that, in contemplating his own death, he
realizes how insignificant fame and “unreflecting” love
are.
It is a lonely conclusion but the point is to consider
what is important in life by separating yourself from it. Surely fame is insignificant,
but what about love? I think the love he’s talking about here is receiving love. He uses
“unreflected” because this is love he receives from his beloved. In this context, he
uses that love as poetic inspiration which, as he previously stated, was in the name of
fame: not love. This may be part of his epiphany but that is subject to each reader’s
interpretation. Keats died young. This poem is definitely about his desire to be, and be
known as, a great poet.
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