Lines in Pleasant Places :: :: University of Virginia Library

Not in a lofty steeple,
Looking down upon the people,
The Church Bell swings;
But from a modest throne
And in a gladsome tone
Its peal outrings
Till every kindly spirit
Shall with a blessing hear it,
And each one feel
Its sweet appeal;—
Feel in their heart of heart
The generous impulse start,
Feel with its every note
The good they should promote,
Feel as its echoes sound
A love more broad abound;
With ready hand,
At its demand,
Feel in their pockets—plenty-crowned—

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And, answering to its chimes,
Bring forth their dimes!

The Church Bell's tongue
Inflicts no pangs along
The path it sounds—with scandal fraught:
It pours no sickly strain
To mislead heart and brain,
But with an inspiration faintly caught
From source above,
With Peace, Good Will, and Love,
Man's blessing is its motive and its thought,—
Man's blessing and God's glory,
The old grand story,
Lighting with joy the humblest pages:
That narrative divinely penned,
Whose interest shall never end—
“To be continued” through eternal ages.

Then list the glad Church Bell,
Whose chimes around you swell;
Of duty's claims they tell.
As, in old revolutionary times,
The ancient church bell's stirring chimes
Woke patriot hearts to strife
For liberty and life,
So this makes like appeal to strike for right,
For Sin is rampant, ready for the fight,
And here the forge for tempering the mail
In which its gathered forces to assail.

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The Fair! The Fair!
No effort spare;
Give of your bounty here a generous share.
'Tis God's own citadel ye build;
Let it with power be filled
By that ye bring and give as offering,
Heart-free and hand-free, and its walls shall spring
A habitation meet for Heaven's Almighty King.