When I have fears that I may cease to be

Egon Schiele

Portrait of Dr. Hugo Koller

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 charactery,

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 faery 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 ~

Barn Owl

John James Audubon

Barn Owl

A Barred Owl

The warping night-air having brought the boom
Of an owl's voice into her darkened room,
We tell the wakened child that all she heard
Was an odd question from a forest bird,
Asking of us, if rightly listened to,
"Who cooks for you?" and then "Who cooks for you?"

Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear,
Can also thus domesticate a fear,
And send a small child back to sleep at night
Not listening for the sound of stealthy flight
Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw
Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.

~ Richard Wilbur ~

When Your Face Dawned

John Everett Millais

The Bridesmaid

When Your Face Dawned

When your face dawned

over my crumpled life,

at first I understood

only the poverty of all I have.

Then its particular light

was shed on woods, rivers, and seas

and initiated into the world of colors

the uninitiated me.

I am so frightened, I am so frightened

of the end of the unexpected sunrise,

of the end of revelations, tears, excitement,

but I don't fight with this fear.

I understand--this fear

is what love is. I cherish it,

though I know not how to cherish,

a careless guard of his own love.

This fear has encircled me.

These moments--I know--are brief,

and for me these colors will vanish

when your face sets.

~ Yevgeny Yevtushenko ~