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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 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.
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 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.
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.
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."
Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells
read more
Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten golden notes,
And all in tune
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens while she gloats
On the moon!
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!
