Compare When I Have Fears And Mezzo Cammin

A Comparison of “When I Have Fears” and “Mezzo Cammin” When asked, many people would say that their biggest fear is death. That was the same for the Romanticism poet John Keats and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a later poet whom was heavily influenced by the Romanticism movement. John Keats experienced death early in life with the passing of both his parents and later the passing of his brother from tuberculosis. Keats too unfortunately passed away at only twenty-one years old, but not before writing some of the most known Romantic poems to date. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow first experienced death with the passing of his beloved, Mary, and later the passing of his second wife, Fanny. This led him to start writing poetry in the first place where

Keats fears that he will not be able to accomplish all that he wants to do but he also recognizes how big and grand the world has become and does not want to leave it just yet. Through this recognition he realizes that his goals are meaningless compared to the grand scheme of life. Keats is grateful for the love and passion that he has already experienced and his regret is that he will no longer be able to experience it. Longfellow is regretful of his inaction in his past that is haunted by sorrows and death and thinks that he does not have a future. His overall tone of death is fearful and grim while Keats’s is more appreciative. Similarities in the poems lie in their beginnings, both of which have resentfulness towards the short-lived nature of life. Keats’s fear of ceasing to be parallels Longfellow saying, “half of [his] life is gone”. Keats uses the repetition of the word “before” as an anaphora to emphasize his concern of passing away before he can obtain his literary goals or utilize his opportunity to “ripen the full grain” (College Board). Similarly, Longfellow too expresses his failure to “fulfill the aspiration of [his] youth, to build, Some tower of song with lofty parapet.” The overall tones and emotions of each poem are similar but each underscores different situations and