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 tintinabulation that so musically swells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells-
From the jingling and the tingling of the bells.
Hear the mellow wedding bells-Golden bells! What a world of happiness their harmony foretells ! Through the balmy air of night How they ring out their delight! From the molten-golden notes, And all in tune.
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells ;-how it dwells
On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
Hear the loud alarum bells-Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror now their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune.
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavour
Now-now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar !
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging and the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling and the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells—
Of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells
In the clamour and the clangour of the bells!
Hear the tolling of the bells !-Iron bells! What a world of solemn thought their monody compels ! In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats,
From the rust within their throats,
Is a groan.
And the people-ah! the people-
They that dwell up in the steeple
All alone,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone-
They are neither man nor woman—
They are neither brute nor human—
They are Ghouls :
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls, rolls,
A pæan from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the pæan of the bells-
And he dances and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the pean of the bells-
Of the bells!
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells,
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells,
To the tolling of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells-
Bells, bells, bells-
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes :
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, so eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days of goodness spent.
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
Evening Prayer at a Girls' School.
Hush! 'tis a holy hour-the quiet room
Seems like a temple, while yon soft lamp sheds A faint and starry radiance, through the gloom
And the sweet stillness, down on bright young heads, And all their clustering locks, untouched by care,
And bowed-as flowers are bowed with night-in prayer. Gaze on, 'tis lovely!-Childhood's lip and cheek,
Mantling beneath its earnest brow of thought!
Gaze, yet what seest thou in those fair and meek
And fragile things, as but for sunshine wrought ?—
Thou seest what Grief must nurture for the sky,
What death must fashion for eternity.
O joyous creatures! that will sink to rest
Lightly, when those pure Orisons are done,
As birds with slumber's honey-dew oppressed,
Midst the dim-folded leaves, at set of sun;
Lift up your hearts! though yet no sorrow lies
Dark in the summer-heaven of those clear eyes.
Though fresh within your breasts the untroubled springs
Of Hope make melody where'er ye tread,
And o'er your sleep bright shadows, from the wings
Of Spirits visiting but youth, be spread;
Yet in those flute-like voices, mingling low,
Is woman's tenderness-how soon her woe!
O take the thought of this calm Vesper time,
With its low murmuring sounds and silvery light,
On through the dark days fading from their prime,
As a sweet dew to keep your souls from blight!
Earth will forsake-oh! happy to have given
The unbroken heart's first fragrance unto Heaven!
Mrs. Hemans.
The Triumphs of the English Language.
Now gather all our Saxon bards,
Let harps and hearts be strung,
To celebrate the triumphs of
Our own good Saxon tongue;
Far stronger far than hosts that march
With battle-flags unfurled,
It goes with Freedom, Thought, and Truth,
To rouse and rule the world.
Stout Albion learns its household lays
On every surf-worn shore,
And Scotland hears its echoing far
As Orkney's breakers roar;
From Jura's crags and Mona's hills
It floats on every gale,
And warms with eloquence and song
The homes of Innisfail.
On many a wide and swarming deck,
It scales the rough wave's crest,
Seeking its peerless hermitage—
The fresh and fruitful West.
It climbs New England's rocky steeps,.
As victor mounts a throne;
Niagara knows and greets the voice
Still mightier than its own.
It spreads where winter piles deep snows
On bleak Canadian plains,
And where, on Essequibo's banks,
Eternal summer reigns;
It glads Arcadia's misty coasts,
Jamaica's glowing isle,
And bides where, gay with early flowers,
Green Texan prairies smile.
It tracks the loud, swift Oregon,
Through sunset valleys rolled;
And soars where Californian brooks
Wash down their sands of gold.
It sounds in Borneo's camphor groves,
On seas of fierce Malay,
In fields that curb old Ganges' flood,
And towers of proud Bombay.
It wakes up Aden's flashing eyes,
Dusk brows, and swarthy limbs-
The dark Siberian soothes her child
With English cradle hymns!
Tasmania's maids are wooed and won
In gentle Saxon speech;
Australian boys read Crusoe's life
By Sydney's sheltered beach.
It dwells where Afric's southmost capes
Meet oceans broad and blue,
And Nieuveld's rugged mountains gird
The wide and waste Karoo.
It kindles realms so far apart,
That, while its praise you sing,
These may be clad with autumn's fruits,
And those with flowers of spring.
It quickens lands whose meteor lights
Flame in an arctic sky,
And lands for which the Southern Cross
Hangs its orbed fires on high.
It goes with all that prophets told,
And righteous king desired-
With all that great apostles taught,
And glorious Greeks admired.
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