The cock crows, and the morn prows on,
When 'tis decreed I must be gone."--_Butler._

--The tale
Of horrid apparition, tall and ghastly,
That walks at dead of night, or takes his stand
O'er some new-open'd grave; and, strange to tell,
Evanishes at crowing of the cock--_Blair._

Who can ever forget the night-watches proclaimed by the cock in that
scene in Comus, where the two brothers, in search of their sister, are
benighted in a forest?--

--Might we but hear
The folded flocks, penned in their wattled cotes,
Or sound of pastoral reed with oaten stops,
Or whistle from the lodge, or village cock
Count the night-watches to his feathery dames,
'Twould be some solace yet, some little cheering,
In this close dungeon of innumerous boughs.

Dr. Forster observes--"There is this remarkable circumstance about the
crowing of cocks--they seem to keep night-watches, or to have general
crowing-matches, at certain periods--as, soon after twelve, at two,
and again at day-break. These are the Alectrephones mentioned by St.
John. To us, these cock-crowings do not appear quite so regular in
their times of occurrence, though they actually observe certain
periods, when not interrupted by the changes of the weather, which
generally produce a great deal of crowing. Indeed, the song of all