One meal, or shelter for one moment there.

My record ends:—But hark! e'en now I hear

The bell of death, and know not whose to fear.

Our farmers all, and all our hinds were well;

In no man's cottage danger seem'd to dwell;—

Yet death of man proclaim these heavy chimes,

For thrice they sound, with pausing space, three times.

"Go; of my sexton seek, Whose days are sped?—

"What! he, himself!—and is old Dibble dead?"

His eightieth year he reach'd, still undecay'd,