By fairy hands their knell is rung;

By forms unseen their dirge is sung;

There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray,

To bless the turf that wraps their clay;

And Freedom shall awhile repair,

To dwell a weeping hermit there!

William Collins (1720-1756): Ode written in the year 1746.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,

The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 1.

That all-softening, overpowering knell,

The tocsin of the soul,—the dinner bell.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Don Juan. Canto v. Stanza 49.

But the sound of the church-going bell

These valleys and rocks never heard;

Ne'er sigh'd at the sound of a knell,

Or smiled when a Sabbath appear'd.

William Cowper (1731-1800): Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk.

But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!

Did ye not hear it?—No! 't was but the wind,

Or the car rattling o'er the stony street.

On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;

No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet

To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 22.

The bell invites me.

Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell

That summons thee to heaven or to hell.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 1.

Come to the bridal chamber, Death!

Come to the mother's, when she feels

For the first time her first-born's breath!

Come when the blessed seals

That close the pestilence are broke,

And crowded cities wail its stroke!

Come in consumption's ghastly form,

The earthquake shock, the ocean storm!

Come when the heart beats high and warm,

With banquet song, and dance, and wine!

And thou art terrible!—the tear,

The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier,

And all we know or dream or fear

Of agony are thine.

Alfred Bunn (1790-1860): Marco Bozzaris.

The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave,

The deep damp vault, the darkness and the worm.

Edward Young (1684-1765): Night Thoughts. Night iv. Line 10.