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.

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.

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.

The cheerful Sabbath bells, wherever heard,
Strike pleasant on the sense, most like the voice
Of one, read more

The cheerful Sabbath bells, wherever heard,
Strike pleasant on the sense, most like the voice
Of one, who from the far-off hills proclaims
Tidings of good to Zion.

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That sucked the honey of his music vows,
Now read more

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That sucked the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason
Like sweet bells jangled, out of time and harsh,
That unmatched form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy.

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!

He heard the convent bell,
Suddenly in the silence ringing
For the service of noonday.

He heard the convent bell,
Suddenly in the silence ringing
For the service of noonday.

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!