The Bell never rings of itself; unless some one handles or moves
it it is dumb.
[Lat., Nunquam read more

The Bell never rings of itself; unless some one handles or moves
it it is dumb.
[Lat., Nunquam aedepol temere tinniit tintinnabulum;
Nisi quis illud tractat aut movet, mutum est, tacet.]

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.

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

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

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!

Bells call others, but themselves enter not into the Church.

Bells call others, but themselves enter not into the Church.

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.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow.

It cometh into court and pleads the cause
Of creatures dumb and unknown to the laws;
And read more

It cometh into court and pleads the cause
Of creatures dumb and unknown to the laws;
And this shall make, in every Christian clime,
The bell of Atri famous for all time.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,

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!