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.]
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I call the Living--I mourn the Dead--
I break the Lightning.
I call the Living--I mourn the Dead--
I break the Lightning.
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!
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.
Bell, thou soundest merrily,
When the bridal party
To the church doth hie!
Bell, read more
Bell, thou soundest merrily,
When the bridal party
To the church doth hie!
Bell, thou soundest solemnly,
When, on Sabbath morning,
Fields deserted lie!
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.
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.
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!
Then get thee gone and dig my grave thyself,
And bid the merry bells ring to thine ear
read more
Then get thee gone and dig my grave thyself,
And bid the merry bells ring to thine ear
That thou are crowned, not that I am dead.
