Toll, toll the bell, its iron tongue
Is weighty as my second,
Dig, dig the grave, to life he clung,
But now his days are reckon’d.

Old man, who’ll ring a knell for thee,
Or dress thy couch of clay?
Why didst not thou thy death foresee,
And dig it for to-day?

King Death his journeyman demands,
On all he works his worst:
His dart he’s flung at old and young,—
Death heedeth not my first.

Old man, thou’st dug some scores of graves,
Who’ll turn the mould for thine?
And when this spade thy bed hath made,
Who’ll lift a spade at mine?