I envy every bird that flies

Into the far and clouded West:

I think of thee-I think of thee!

Oh, dearest! hast thou thought of me?

END OF PART I.

PART II.

INSCRIBED TO CHARLES OTLEY, ESQ.

OF FLORENCE.

THE DYING ALCHYMIST.

THE night wind with a desolate moan swept by,
And the old shutters of the turret swung

Screaming upon their hinges, and the moon,
As the torn edges of the clouds flew past,
Struggled aslant the stained and broken panes
So dimly, that the watchful eye of death
Scarcely was conscious when it went and came.

The fire beneath his crucible was low;
Yet still it burned, and ever as his thoughts
Grew insupportable, he raised himself
Upon his wasted arm, and stirred the coals

With difficult energy, and when the rod

Fell from his nerveless fingers, and his eye
Felt faint within its socket, he shrunk back
Upon his pallet, and with unclosed lips
Muttered a curse on death! The silent room
From its dim corners mockingly gave back
His rattling breath; the humming in the fire
Had the distinctness of a knell, and when
Duly the antique horologe beat one,

He drew a phial from beneath his head,
And drank. And instantly his lips compressed,

And with a shudder in his skeleton frame,
He rose with supernatural strength, and sat
Upright, and communed with himself:-

I did not think to die

Till I had finished what I had to do;

I thought to pierce th' eternal secret through With this my mortal eye;

I felt-Oh God! it seemeth even now

This cannot be the death-dew on my brow.