"Forever": 'tis a single word!
 Our rude forefathers deemed 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 occurred
 To solder the disjoined, and dower
 The 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 deemed it two:
 Nor am I confident they erred;
 Are you?