Hope and Despair
The torturers, slept; no mortal pain or fear
Marred his repose; the influxes of sense
And his own being, unalloyed by pain
Yet feebler and more feeble, calmly fed
The stream of thought, till he lay breathing there
At peace, and faintly smiling.
from Alastor; or, The Spirit of Solitude by Percy Bysshe Shelley