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

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

Around, around,
Companions all, take your ground,
And name the bell with joy profound!
read more

Around, around,
Companions all, take your ground,
And name the bell with joy profound!
Concordia is the world we've found
Most meet to express the harmonious sound,
That calls to those in friendship bound.

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!

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.]

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!

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.

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.]

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!