There littleness was not; the least of things
Seemed infinite; and there his spirit shaped
Her prospects, nor did he believe,—He saw.
I have believed the best of every man,
And find that to believe it is enough
To make a bad man show him at his best,
Or even a good man swing his lantern higher.
BELLS
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.
That all-softening, overpowering knell,
The tocsin of the soul—the dinner bell.
How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals 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.
The vesper bell from far
That seems to mourn for the expiring day.
Your voices break and falter in the darkness,—
Break, falter, and are still.
Bells call others, but themselves enter not into
the Church.
Dear bells! how sweet the sound of village bells
When on the undulating air they swim!
While the steeples are loud in their joy,
To the tune of the bells' ring-a-ding,
Let us chime in a peal, one and all,
For we all should be able to sing Hullah baloo.
The old mayor climbed the belfry tower,
The ringers ran by two, by three;
"Pull, if ye never pulled before;
Good ringers, pull your best," quoth he.
"Play uppe, play uppe, O Boston bells!
Ply all your changes, all your swells,
Play uppe The Brides of Enderby."
I call the Living;—I mourn the Dead—
I break the Lightning.
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.
For bells are the voice of the church;
They have tones that touch and search
The hearts of young and old.
Seize the loud, vociferous bells, and
Clashing, clanging to the pavement
Hurl them from their windy tower!
These bells have been anointed,
And baptized with holy water!
He heard the convent bell,
Suddenly in the silence ringing
For the service of noonday.
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.
Bell, thou soundest merrily,
When the bridal party
To the church doth hie!
Bell, thou soundest solemnly,
When, on Sabbath morning,
Fields deserted lie!
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.
