Still nursing the unconquerable hope,
Still clutching the inviolable shade.

These lines evoke a posture of stubborn inward perseverance: the speaker continues to “nurse” a hope that cannot be defeated and to “clutch” a “shade” (a shadow, memory, or ideal presence) that remains sacred and untouchable. The diction suggests both tenderness and desperation—hope is cared for like something fragile, while the “shade” is grasped as if it might slip away. Taken together, the couplet captures a Romantic-Victorian tension between disillusionment and the refusal to surrender sustaining ideals, implying that even when external circumstances offer little ground for confidence, the human spirit may persist by holding fast to an inner, inviolable consolation.