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 

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