Mysterious alchemy

At Amazon.com I came upon this beautiful expression: "By some mysterious alchemy." Google gives 58 hits, the first of which is the quote appearing at Amazon (albeit from another website). What's the origin?

BTW, on the same page at Amazon, there's yet another fine expression: "To seize the passing dream." Sounds Shakespearean. Is it?
Thanks
Anders

Regarding alchemy, if you expand the Google search a little, you'll get 558 hits for "mysterious alchemy". However, your question is a good one, because "by some mysterious alchemy" is a phrase I recognise as havign seen before, so it must be in use. However, I can find no attribution for it - but I'll bet someone else here can.

Nice phrases. But I can't find either in my quotation books.

Thanks for your replies, guys. Yes, I like those phrases too. In terms of 'by some mysterious alchemy' vs. 'mysterious alchemy', there's a huge difference. Alchemy in itself is notoriously mysterious, and a well-covered subject, so really there's little mystery to the fact that 'mysterious alchemy' yields a lot of hits. 'By some mysterious alchemy', on the other hand, - this wonderfully mysterious adverbial! - now that's something else. I am sure it will eventually creep into my vocabulary, and do so, yes, verily, by some mysterious alchemy! :-)

I did a search for 'seize the/a passing dream' in a Shakespeare search engine. No hits. It echoes, of course, the Platonic notion of life as but a dream, which is present in many places of Shakespeare, as it was in the Renaissance generally.

Anders