Day is near the breaking.
Sir Walter Scott.
From Guy Mannering. Scott says it is a prayer or spell, which was used in Scotland or Northern England to speed the passage of a parting spirit, like the tolling of a bell in Catholic days.
The world is full of Woodmen who expel
Love’s gentle Dryads from the haunts of life,
And vex the nightingales in every dell.
Shelley (The Woodman and the Nightingale).