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!

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.

The church-going bell.

The church-going bell.

Your voices break and falter in the darkness,--
Break, falter, and are still.

Your voices break and falter in the darkness,--
Break, falter, and are still.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the read more

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

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.

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.]

Curfew must not ring to-night.

Curfew must not ring to-night.

Those evening bells! those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells!

Those evening bells! those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells!