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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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.
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!
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.
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.
Hark! the bonny Christ-Church bells,
One, two, three, four, five, six;
They sound so woundy great,
read more
Hark! the bonny Christ-Church bells,
One, two, three, four, five, six;
They sound so woundy great,
So wound'rous sweet,
And they troul so merrily.
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,
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.
