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

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

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.

These bells have been anointed,
And baptized with holy water!

These bells have been anointed,
And baptized with holy water!

For bells are the voice of the church;
They have tones that touch and search
The hearts read more

For bells are the voice of the church;
They have tones that touch and search
The hearts of young and old.

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!

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.

With deep affection
And recollection
I often think of
Those Shandon bells,
read more

With deep affection
And recollection
I often think of
Those Shandon bells,
Whose sounds so wild would,
In the days of childhood,
Fling round my cradle
Their magic spells.

Curfew must not ring to-night.

Curfew must not ring to-night.

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!