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.]
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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.
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.
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.
Hear the sledges with the bells,
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
read more
Hear the sledges with the bells,
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night,
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the Heavens seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells--
From the jingling and the tingling of the bells.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness read more
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land;
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
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.
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!
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.
Bell, thou soundest merrily,
When the bridal party
To the church doth hie!
Bell, read more
Bell, thou soundest merrily,
When the bridal party
To the church doth hie!
Bell, thou soundest solemnly,
When, on Sabbath morning,
Fields deserted lie!
