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