Question One (Poems)

I felt that the most trouble I have with essays is a strong intro so I decided to spend most of my effort on the intro

Question 1

(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts as one-third of the total essay section score.)

In the two poems below, Keats and Longfellow reflect on similar concerns. Read the poems carefully. Then write an essay in which you compare and contrast the two poems, analyzing the poetic techniques each writer uses to explore his particular situation.

When I Have Fears

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.

1818 —John Keats (1795-1821)

Mezzo Cammin

Written at Boppard on the Rhine August 25, 1842,

Just Before Leaving for Home

Half of my life is gone, and I have let

The years slip from me and have not fulfilled

The aspiration of my youth, to build

Some tower of song with lofty parapet.

Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret

Of restless passions that would not be stilled,

But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,

Kept me from what I may accomplish yet;

Though, half-way up the hill, I see the Past

Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,—

A city in the twilight dim and vast,

With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights,—

And hear above me on the autumnal blast

The cataract

of Death far thundering from the heights.

1842 —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

1 The title is from the first line of Dante’s

Divine Comedy: “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita” (“Midway upon the journey of our life”).

2 A large waterfall

Death is imminent, there is no doubt about that and after death comes there is nothing we can do to check any unchecked boxes from our bucket list. There is always the fear of dying, yes, but the even greater fear is having regrets on how one lives his or her life and whether they lived it to the fullest or not. 

“When I Have Fears” by John Keats and “Mezzo Cammin” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow are to poems that depict the fears and doubts of the choices of life and whether they have done what they have wanted in the little time that has been given to him. Each poem uses strong poetic and literary techniques to further accentuate this fear and uneasiness toward this theme. Keats has his own diction and Wadsworth Longfellow has his own tone and through each of these author’s unique diction, tone and form they are able to convey the situation and the theme of their respected poems.