Their eloquence is sad, sounding like the tocsin of departed glories, protesting earnestlybut without effectagainst those corruptions which it was too late to heal.

Good Gaieta bedecks our saint serene With robes translucent, light-irradiate, Restoring her to all her natural sheen; The while my tocsin at the temple-gate Of the wide universe proclaims her queen, Pythia of first and last ordained by fate.

I felt my hair rise on my head as these questions rang like a tocsin through my brain, and I think, at that moment, I had a foretaste of the chief agony of death.