My fears are not that I may cease to be

Rooted, steadfast, embodied in a world of physicality

And without fears too, for the deserted drying

Of heartfelt words, or inspiration

Forever drawn to all my time spent, in dedication

For no greater pleasure do I feel, may’st I apply

Whilst chained, imprisoned, in this dimension

My only freedom, flight of soul, needs must express

Such a deep felt love, for all humanity

A curious quest, I cannot explain

Impression’d on high from an invisible plane

So sublime, that poetic craft

Is not required for meter, or to rhyme

Unless such craft imply, inject, ripened hearts

With the jewel of ‘inner meaning’

Inner truth infused with love

All pervading and genuine

Connecting precious principals beyond mere words

Which seek to make whole thus human kind

In complete align

So that intelligent insights into our complex universe

May penetrate not only the heart, but also the skin and the mind

Whereupon tinsel-gilded illusions

May fall away into nothingness

Instead replaced by a delicacy and a gentleness

A refinement of the senses

Through an indiscriminate understanding

That the elixir of love

Is wisdom plus integrity

And connects us all

To every single living being, or entity.

‘Elixir of Love’ (above) was written in response to the sonnet: ‘When I have Fears’ by John Keats. Keats sent his sonnet in a letter to his friend John Hamilton Reynolds in January 1818.

‘When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact’ry,
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.’

Another Keats quote: ‘I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart’s affections and the truth of Imagination‘ that he wrote in a letter to his friend Bailey (Full letter here) had the same effect upon me and inspired Holiness of the Heart.

‘Elixir of Love’ has been published in the following anthologies:
Forward Poetry: Love is in the Air – Vol 1 (2015)
Poets for World Healing (2012)
Poets for World Peace (2012)
A Poetically Spoken Anthology (2011)
Reach Poetry (2010)

Currently available in the collection: Creatrix published by iPoem Press