Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Write on your doors the saying wise and old,
"Be bold! be bold!" and everywhere--"Be bold;
Be read more

Write on your doors the saying wise and old,
"Be bold! be bold!" and everywhere--"Be bold;
Be not too bold!" Yet better the excess
That the defect; better the more than less;
Better like Hector in the field to die,
Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly.

They sing, they will pay.
[Fr., Ils chantent, ils payeront.]

They sing, they will pay.
[Fr., Ils chantent, ils payeront.]

The ceaseless rain is falling fast,
And yonder gilded vane,
Immovable for three days past,
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The ceaseless rain is falling fast,
And yonder gilded vane,
Immovable for three days past,
Points to the misty main.

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.

Hail to the King of Bethlehem,
Who weareth in his diadem
The yellow crocus for the gem
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Hail to the King of Bethlehem,
Who weareth in his diadem
The yellow crocus for the gem
Of his authority!