I was sitting, one night, in my easy-chair,
When a bell's clear notes rung out on the air;
And a few stray thoughts, as this ballad tells,
Came into my mind, about sundry bells:
About church-going bells, whose solemn chime
Calls, far and near, 'It's time! _it's time!_'
While the worshiper goes, with a faith that is strong,
For he knows he can trust their clear '_Ding-dong!_'
Of deified bells, like Bel of old,
With silver tongues and a ring of gold;
While the many who run at their silvery call,
Never reach the goal--d; but tire and fall!
Of modest bells, by the river's side,
As they meekly hang o'er the liquid tide;
But are tongueless all, and their changes few,
For they ever appear in a dress of blue.
Of modern Belles, which the world well knows,
Go all the ways that the fashion goes;
And ring their chimes through an endless range,
As they change their rattle, and rattle their '_change_.'
Of divers' bells, which are made to go,
With their living freight, to the depths below;
And are quiet quite, on their water ways,
Save hen they are trying to 'make a raise.'
Of door-bells, which our callers ring
By a kind of a sort of a wire of a string;
Answered oft, as wire-pullers ought to be--
'_Not at home!_' meaning, '_Not in order to see!_'
About John Bells, _one_ of whom, we know,
Politicians rung not long ago;
An unlucky Bell, and to-day a wreck,
But fit, even _now_, to be wrung--_by the neck!_
About Isabelles, so diverse in kind,
That the one you prefer isn't hard to find;
Yet hard 'tis to be in _this_ all agreed--
Isabelle by name _is_ a belle in-deed!
And thus, as I sat in my easy-chair,
While the bell's clear notes rung through the air,
Did a few stray thoughts, as this ballad tells,
Come into my mind, about sundry bells.
* * * * *
'Is this 'dreadful bad'?' inquires a correspondent. Gentle writer, it is
not dreadful, neither is it bad; and we appeal to the reader to decide.
To our thought, it is as brave and wild a love-poem as we have seen for
many a day: