Softly the loud peal dies,
In passing winds it drowns,
But breathes, like perfect joys,
read more

Softly the loud peal dies,
In passing winds it drowns,
But breathes, like perfect joys,
Tender tones.

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.

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.]

Hear the sledges with the bells,
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
read more

Hear the sledges with the bells,
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night,
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the Heavens seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells--
From the jingling and the tingling of the bells.

The church-going bell.

The church-going bell.

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.]

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!

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.