THE pull-wheel whirled in the bell-tower, The bell heaved up to yawn; Its looming shoulder sank in the dark Like a sleeper's waked ere dawn. The priest cried up the stair "Now who has dared to pass, With never a breath of the holy words And never a coin for a mass?" The sexton moaned as he wrought "For no earth-dead do I toll; There's a wife a-bed, and I wistfully ring A knell for a new-born soul. "For when a child is born A spirit must leave God's house; And is not that the blindest death, Numbest, most piteous?" "And how many years do you toll?" "Ah God, if I only knew I might learn the place where Heaven is, And a light-swift path thereto." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SUMMER SUN by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON THE LUNCH by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH A PRAYER FOR THE NEW YEAR by LAURA F. ARMITAGE PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 1. ALLAH by EDWIN ARNOLD EMBLEMS OF LOVE: 22. 'TIS HONOURABLE TO BE LOVE'S MARTYR by PHILIP AYRES S. BARNABAS by JOSEPH BEAUMONT PSALM 20. EXAUDIAT TE DEUS by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE |