Peal on, peal on,—I love to hear The old church ding-dong soft and clear! The welcome sounds are doubly blest With future hope and earthly rest. Yet were no calling changes found To spread their cheering echoes round, There's not a place where man may dwell But he can hear a Sabbath bell.
Go to the woods, when Winter's song Howls like a famish'd wolf along; Or when the south winds scarcely turn The light leaves of the trembling fern,— Although no cloister chimes ring there, The heart is call'd to faith and prayer; For all Creation's voices tell The tidings of the Sabbath bell.
Go to the billows, let them pour In gentle calm, or headlong roar; Let the vast ocean be thy home, Thou'lt find a God upon the foam; In rippling swell or stormy roll, The crystal waves shall wake thy soul; And thou shalt feel the hallow'd spell Of the wide water's Sabbath bell.
The lark upon his skyward way, The robin on the hedge-row spray, The bee within the wild thyme's bloom, The owl amid the cypress gloom, All sing in every varied tone A vesper to the Great Unknown; Above-below-one chorus swells Of God's unnumber'd Sabbath bells.
