In the first quatrain we find the imagery of the harvest, e.g., "glean'd," "garners," "full ripen'd grain." He reinforces this idea with the alliteration - repetition of the same sound at the beginning of a word to emphasize - of the key words "glean'd," garners," and "grain," as well as the repetition of “r” sounds in "charactery," "rich," "garners,"ripen'd," and "grain.". A harvest means his fulfillment in time, the culmination which yields a valued product, reflected in the grain being "full ripen'd." Abundance is also apparent in the adjectives "high-piled" and "rich." The harvest metaphor contains a paradox - a statement whose two parts seem contradictory yet make sense with more thought to attract the reader’s attention and gives emphasis -, very characteristic in Keats's poetry: Keats is both the field of grain - his imagination is like the grain to be harvested - and he is the harvester - writer of poetry - .
In the next quatrain he sees the world as full of material - the beauty of nature "night's starr'd face” – line 5 - and the larger meanings he perceives beneath the appearance of nature or physical phenomena "Huge cloudy symbols" – line 6 - - that he could transform into poetry – with "the magic hand” – line 8 - .
In the third quatrain he turns to love. As the "fair creature of an hour," – line 9 - his beloved is short-lived just as, by implication, love is. The quatrain itself parallels the idea of little time, in being only three and a half lines, rather than the usual four lines of a Shakespearean sonnet; the effect in reading is of a slight speeding-up of time. How important is love compared to poetry for Keats in this poem? Does the fact that he devotes fewer lines to love than to poetry suggest anything about their relative importance to him? Does this lines have too much feeling within them to make the reader experience the loss as much or more than if they were more?
The poet's concern with time, which is not enough time to fulfill his poetic gift and love, is supported by the repetition of "when" at the beginning of each quatrain and by the shortening of the third quatrain. Keats attributes two qualities to love: it has the ability to transform the world for the lovers "faery power" – line 11 - , and involves us with emotion rather than thought: "I feel" – line 9 - and "unreflecting love" – line 12 - .