At first cock-crow the ghosts must go Back to their quiet graves below.

The couplet draws on a widespread piece of European folklore: nocturnal spirits and apparitions lose their power at daybreak and must retreat when the rooster announces morning. The “cock-crow” functions as a boundary marker between night’s uncanny license and the restoring order of daylight. Read figuratively, the lines suggest that fears, regrets, and haunting memories thrive in darkness—literal or psychological—but are dispelled by the return of clarity, routine, and communal life. The rhyme and simple diction give the thought the feel of a traditional charm or nursery verse, reinforcing its connection to oral superstition and the comforting idea that the supernatural (or the troubling) is temporary and governed by rules.