I feel the knife, the separating knife, divide
The tender chords that tie my soul
To earth. Yes, I must die, I feel that I _must_ die
And though to me has life been dark and dreary
Though smiling Hope, has lured but to deceive,
And disappointment still pursued its blandishments,
Yet do I feel my soul recoil within me,
As I contemplate the grim gulf,--

The shuddering blank, the awful void futurity.
Aye, I had planned full many a sanguine scheme,
Romantic schemes and fraught with loveliness;
And it is hard to feel the hand of death
Arrest one's steps; throw a chill blast
O'er all one's budding hopes, and hurl one's soul
Untimely to the grave, lost in the gaping gulf
Of blank oblivion. Fifty years hence,
And who will think of Henry? ah, none!
Another busy world of beings will start up
In the interim, and none will hold him
In remembrance. I shall sink as sinks
A stranger in the crowded streets of busy London,
A few enquiries, and the crowds pass on,
And all's forgotten. O'er my grassy grave
The men of future times will careless tread
And read my name upon the sculptured stone;
Nor will the sound, familiar with their ears,
Recall my vanished memory. I had hoped
For better things; I hoped I should not leave
This earth without a vestige. Fate decrees