The bell strikes one.

We take no note of time But from its loss.

To give it then a tongue Is wise in man.

As if an angel spoke, I feel the solemn sound.
YOUNG.
The moral which the poet has rather quaintly deduced from the necessary mode of measuring time may be well applied to our feelings respecting that portion of it which constitutes human life.

We observe the aged, the infirm, and those engaged in occupations of immediate hazard, trembling as it were upon the very brink of non-existence, but we derive no lesson from the precariousness of their tenure until it has altogether failed.
Then, for a moment at least-- Our hopes and fears Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge Look down--on what?
a fathomless abyss, A dark eternity, how surely ours! The crowd of assembled gazers and idlers at Ellangowan had followed the views of amusement, or what they called business, which brought them there, with little regard to the feelings of those who were suffering upon that occasion.