Sweden's Laureate: Selected Poems of Verner von Heidenstam/Singers in the Steeple

by Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam

SINGERS IN THE STEEPLE.

At the belfry window the ringer stood,
A vigorous form of giant size.
His thatch of red hair, unkempt and rude,
Was blown down over his eyes.
  ——Ding! Dong!——
He tramped at the treadle and sang his song:

"Thou mighty thundering church-bell, thou,
With lips and tongue of metal that ring,
Thou callest the people to worship now,
But this my own psalm I prefer to sing.
The weary week-days back to Monday
Are slaves to the rich man, the money-lord.
The only day that steals from his hoard
A paltry copper is Sunday.
His life is a heaven. Ours instead
Is a hell. We are ragged and eat hard bread.
At home our loved ones are sighing,
While starved we row for a surfeited race
Their barge of trade with sweat in our face
And weep at the oars we are plying."
  ——Ding! Dong!——
"May vengeance dire consume them!
When shall I ring in redress of wrong,
And God's own judgment doom them?

"From our starving flesh they cut off a pound
To make the money-lord fat and round.
But beware, money-lord, your knell will be rung!
Oppression is old but freedom is young.
She comes as a thief in the night.
She waits not to knock, but in she breaks
She tramples your carpets and hers she makes
Whatever you snatched with your might.

"There's a mine of powder by no means small
In the cellars under your castle wall.
A spark, and the mob will rally."
  ——Ding! Dong!——
"We bring an armful of stones along,
With torches we sally
From hovel and alley.
We shame your wife, we stick your swine,
We spill on the street your costliest wine.
Your roan must pull where we have striven.
And when to ashes your castle is burned,
Our hell will be turned
At once into your proud heaven.

"From our huts to the square we all drag out
Our straw and our tatters clout by clout.
On them shall your throne be, O money-king,
And your plundered purse for your apple we'll bring.
And drummers shall come and stand around
To thunder and pound
On your kitchen saucepans furiously,
And fifers shall toot in time with them
On crystal decanters your requiem.
Above, your house totters, while sparks begem
Your smoke-woven canopy.
Your dirge to the skies will groan now,
And beggars will bring live coals to fire
The straw-heap that is your throne now.
They dance in a ring around your pyre,
While I sing bass in the men's deep song.
And I ring in so loudly your final hour
That earth re-echoes my strokes of power."
  ——Ding! Dong!——

Up on the tower beams beside him sat
His wife in silence. Then she followed him
Down the steep ladder's length, she followed on
In silent thought down churchyard pathways trim.
Beside their cottage lay a narrow plot
Of garden by a hill, all baked and dry.
Thither she went alone, but in her ears
Still rang the deep bell and her husband's cry.
He, harsh and wild, slunk off as was his wont
To drink and gamble at a neighbor's house.
She sat her down among the stones beneath
The mingled maple and wild cherry boughs.
To save her Sunday shoes she loosened them
And slowly took them off. With playful air
She wove for fun a chain of maple leaves
And fastened on some cherries here and there.
Then she sprang up, hearing a man's voice nigh
And sound of more men coming, vaulted o'er
The latticed garden gate with nimble bound,
And ran until she reached the steeple door.
There she stepped in, afraid she might be caught
Running bare-footed on a Sabbath day.
In the dark steeple, under the round bell,
She, young and sunburnt, held her leaf array.

She listened long; at last, when no one came,
Quickly around her neck the wreath she threw
And climbed the steep rungs higher, higher yet,
Until the floor had vanished from her view.

Dull in the wood-work whined the eddying draught.
With bended foot and practiced hand she stood
Upon the rungs as upon tight-stretched cords
And held on steadfastly with resolute mood.
Through loop-holes she could see the market-place,
But all was dark beneath her in the tower.
At every step the bell became more large,
And men grew smaller on the street below her.
Breathless and flushed and warm she reached the bell;
Like to a loved and trusted friend she found it,
And when she smote her knuckles on its rim,
Whispered vibrations fluttered all around it.
But higher still the narrow steps led on.
Boldly at last with lifted hands she swung
Up to the narrow beam. The bell below,
Dumbly upon its bright-worn axis hung.
One arm across the beam, she twined her chain
Of maple leaves around the brazen crest,
So that the green-gray giant suddenly
Was as a maiden for her bridal dressed.

The service done, the ringer came, but paused
In dumb surprise, his arm against a beam,
To note the verdant head-dress of the bell
With reddish-purple cherries all agleam.
His wife had often rung the bell before;
She waited not his grumble or his frown
But on the well-worn treadle of the bell
She set her foot, strong-sinewed, bare and brown.
The bell swayed heavily from side to side,
Now the first deafening strokes were heard to ring.
With that the frightened jackdaws raised a cry,
And tower, roof and beams began to swing.

  ——Ding! Dong!——
She tramped at the treadle and sang her song:
"From the tower's quivering height
Ring forth over square and street!
Afar lies the plain with its waving wheat
And the woods where the sun glows bright.
Not only over the fields and bays,
Where, O bell, thy notes are hurled,
But over the weeks and years I gaze
To the brothering-time of the world.
I see not savage and weaponed men,
Not kindled cities aflame—
Such a world would be but again
The old world, the ill world, the same.

"Nay, the city is festive. Bells are clanging.
At every doorway garlands are seen.
Between the houses festoons are hanging,
The street is all like an arbor of green.
A forest of flags on the house-tops is swaying
And streamers by thousands and thousands are playing.
The mightiest pennon gleams and arches
From the golden vane of the steeple.
Like brothers below pass the people,
For rich man with poor man marches.
They meet not for strife but for shaking of hands,
As now are gathered the reaper bands
For the haying-feast at midsummer time.
Then my daughter's daughter shall climb
To the bell where the rafters sway,
And, brown of hue and young and strong
As I, shall ring in the brothering-day."
  ——Ding! Dong!——
"Then, drawn by white horses with plumes of white
At a walk, a carriage comes in sight,
A carriage with silvered wagon-prong."
  ——Ding! Dong!——
"Around it are children in white arrayed.
The rain of flowers has overlaid
So deeply the stones of the street below
That softly the wheels as on carpets go.
On the carriage, the goal of every eye
Stands a mighty cup exalted high,
A bowl whereon wreaths of corn-flowers twine,
And along the rim these letters shine:
Not joy to the rich, to the poor man care;
Our toil and our pleasure alike we share.

"The crowd makes way for the carriage to come,
The murmurs grow silent, the people stand dumb;
Only the sound of the bells is rolled,
Like a seraph-song from the blue down-sailing.
Then the heads are bared, both young and old.
Then matrons and maidens look pale and cold
As they stand by their balcony railing.
Unsparing, each tears in pieces
The necklace that brother or husband gave,
Strips off the rings that sparkle so brave,
And her arms from jewels releases.
They climb on the railings one and all
And into the mighty cup let fall
Their wealth, where the flowers blending
Hide with their petals the bad gold's gleam.
Like rain-drops in banded light descending,
From festive balconies falls the stream."
  ——Ding! Dong!——
"With sudden tears the most hardened of men
Swears to abide by his fellows then
In weal or woe his whole life long
As a son, a brother, one of their clay.
The tender woman in man shall bring
Redemption to all the world and ring
In the future's brothering-day."