FOREVER; ’tis a single word!
Our rude forefathers deem’d it two:
Can you imagine so absurd
A view?
Forever! What abysms of woe
The word reveals, what frenzy, what
Despair! For ever (printed so)
Did not.
It looks, ah me! how trite and tame!
It fails to sadden or appal
Or solace—it is not the same
At all.
O thou to whom it first occurr’d
To solder the disjoin’d, and dower
Thy native language with a word
Of power:
We bless thee! Whether far or near
Thy dwelling, whether dark or fair
Thy kingly brow, is neither here
Nor there.
But in men’s hearts shall be thy throne,
While the great pulse of England beats:
Thou coiner of a word unknown
To Keats!
And nevermore must printer do
As men did long ago; but run
“For” into “ever,” bidding two
Be one.
Forever! passion-fraught, it throws
O’er the dim page a gloom, a glamour:
It’s sweet, it’s strange; and I suppose
It’s grammar.
Forever! ’Tis a single word!
And yet our fathers deem’d it two:
Nor am I confident they err’d;
Are you?