A Poet's Harvest Home Being One Hundred Short Poems: By William Bell Scott ... With an Aftermath of Twenty Short Poems |
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NEW YEAR BELLS.
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 | A Poet's Harvest Home |  |
162
NEW YEAR BELLS.
TWO EPOCHS. I. 1831.
Long years ago, when love was lord of me
And all good gifts were in the impending year,
At this same hour I heard afar and near
These New Year bells flood heaven with melody:
I, home bound through the snow, as over sea
Voices of dear friends hail the mariner
Returning prosperous: till in their rear
Saint Paul's great voice made lesser voices flee.
And all good gifts were in the impending year,
At this same hour I heard afar and near
These New Year bells flood heaven with melody:
I, home bound through the snow, as over sea
Voices of dear friends hail the mariner
Returning prosperous: till in their rear
Saint Paul's great voice made lesser voices flee.
What mattered then beneath those hopeful bells
The homeward walk by weary fortune given,
The obscure future whersoever driven,
In years to come; all lost in those sweet knells
High overhead, like messages from heaven.
The homeward walk by weary fortune given,
The obscure future whersoever driven,
In years to come; all lost in those sweet knells
High overhead, like messages from heaven.
163
TWO EPOCHS. II. 1881.
Ring out again, ye Bells of Battersea,
Over the seaward Thames while I sit here
Lamplit, with moistened eye and hungering ear,
Recalling thoughts of things once hoped to be—
Past now, forgotten almost; for to me
Those wild harmonies in the waves of air,
Changing yet still repeating, here or there,
Yet truly ordered, ring life's history.
Over the seaward Thames while I sit here
Lamplit, with moistened eye and hungering ear,
Recalling thoughts of things once hoped to be—
Past now, forgotten almost; for to me
Those wild harmonies in the waves of air,
Changing yet still repeating, here or there,
Yet truly ordered, ring life's history.
And still I hear them lovingly, good bells,
Across the rushing river in the wind,
Fainting or rising as the tempest swells;
The river rushing like dark years behind
Chasing dark years gone by, and those sweet spells
High overhead with memories intertwined.
Across the rushing river in the wind,
Fainting or rising as the tempest swells;
The river rushing like dark years behind
Chasing dark years gone by, and those sweet spells
High overhead with memories intertwined.
| A Poet's Harvest Home | |