I call the Living--I mourn the Dead--
I break the Lightning.

I call the Living--I mourn the Dead--
I break the Lightning.

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,

How like the leper, with his own sad cry
Enforcing his own solitude, it tolls!
That lonely read more

How like the leper, with his own sad cry
Enforcing his own solitude, it tolls!
That lonely bell set in the rushing shoals,
To warn us from the place of jeopardy!

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.

Seize the loud, vociferous fells, and
Clashing, clanging to the pavement
Hurl them from their windy tower!

Seize the loud, vociferous fells, and
Clashing, clanging to the pavement
Hurl them from their windy tower!

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That sucked the honey of his music vows,
Now read more

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That sucked the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason
Like sweet bells jangled, out of time and harsh,
That unmatched form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy.

Those evening bells! those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells!

Those evening bells! those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells!

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.

Dear bells! how sweet the sound of village bells
When on the undulating air they swim!

Dear bells! how sweet the sound of village bells
When on the undulating air they swim!