DEATH-BED.
Reading edition
We value time but on the bed of death,
When its brief sands are running to an end;
O! how we then remember with dismay
Our wasted hours, which, like reproachful ghosts
Of murder’d friends, rise up and pass before us!
How quickly flee the moments,—precious then
As moments ne’er were dear to us before,
Each counted with an agonising pang
As they recede, and with them—ebbing life,
Leaving the shrinking soul in terror dire,
To meet, as best it may, the conqueror Death.