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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 4
"Forever."
"Forever."
Forever; 'tis a single word!
Our rude forefathers deemed it two:
Can you imagine so absurd
A view?
Forever I "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 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 longago; 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 err'd Are you?
—C. S. Calverley's Fly Leaves.