Hark, how chimes the passing bell!
There's no music to a knell;
All the other sounds we read more

Hark, how chimes the passing bell!
There's no music to a knell;
All the other sounds we hear,
Flatter, and but cheat our ear.
This doth put us still in mind
That our flesh must be resigned,
And, a general silence made,
The world be muffled in a shade.
[Orpheus' lute, as poets tell,
Was but moral of this bell,
And the captive soul was she,
Which they called Eurydice,
Rescued by our holy groan,
A loud echo to this tone.]

The old mayor climbed the belfry tower,
The ringers ran by two, by three;
"Pull, if ye read more

The old mayor climbed the belfry tower,
The ringers ran by two, by three;
"Pull, if ye never pulled before;
Good ringers, pull your best," quoth he.
"Play uppe, play uppe, O Boston bells!
Ply all your changes, all your swells,
Play uppe The Brides of Enderby."

These bells have been anointed,
And baptized with holy water!

These bells have been anointed,
And baptized with holy water!

And this be the vocation fit,
For which the founder fashioned it;
High, high above earth's life, read more

And this be the vocation fit,
For which the founder fashioned it;
High, high above earth's life, earth's labor
E'en to the heaven's blue vault to soar.
To hover as the thunder's neighbor,
The very firmament explore.
To be a voice as from above
Like yonder stars so bright and clear,
That praise their Maker as they move,
And usher in the circling year.
Tun'd be its metal mouth alone
To things eternal and sublime.
And as the swift wing'd hours speed on
May it record the flight of time!

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.]

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.

Then get thee gone and dig my grave thyself,
And bid the merry bells ring to thine ear
read more

Then get thee gone and dig my grave thyself,
And bid the merry bells ring to thine ear
That thou are crowned, not that I am dead.

And the Sabbath bell,
That over wood and wild and mountain dell
Wanders so far, chasing all read more

And the Sabbath bell,
That over wood and wild and mountain dell
Wanders so far, chasing all thoughts unholy
With sounds most musical, most melancholy.

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.