How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at interval upon the ear
In cadence sweet; read more

How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at interval upon the ear
In cadence sweet; now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again, and louder still,
Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on!
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where Memory slept.

Your voices break and falter in the darkness,--
Break, falter, and are still.

Your voices break and falter in the darkness,--
Break, falter, and are still.

It cometh into court and pleads the cause
Of creatures dumb and unknown to the laws;
And read more

It cometh into court and pleads the cause
Of creatures dumb and unknown to the laws;
And this shall make, in every Christian clime,
The bell of Atri famous for all time.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,

The vesper bell from far
That seems to mourn for the expiring day.

The vesper bell from far
That seems to mourn for the expiring day.

That all-softening, overpowering knell,
The tocsin of the soul--the dinner bell.

That all-softening, overpowering knell,
The tocsin of the soul--the dinner bell.

The bells themselves are the best of preachers,
Their brazen lips are learned teachers,
From their pulpits read more

The bells themselves are the best of preachers,
Their brazen lips are learned teachers,
From their pulpits of stone, in the upper air,
Sounding aloft, without crack or flaw,
Shriller than trumpets under the Law,
Now a sermon and now a prayer.

Ring out, will bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light.

Ring out, will bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light.

The Bell never rings of itself; unless some one handles or moves
it it is dumb.
[Lat., Nunquam read more

The Bell never rings of itself; unless some one handles or moves
it it is dumb.
[Lat., Nunquam aedepol temere tinniit tintinnabulum;
Nisi quis illud tractat aut movet, mutum est, tacet.]

Curfew must not ring to-night.

Curfew must not ring to-night.