University of Virginia Library

CHURCH BELLS.

Through the curtained mist and snow
Come those voices,
Come those voices
From the land of Long-ago,
Like an angel who rejoices
In the loves of Long-ago:
Chiming, chiming,
Rhyming, rhyming,
In a rapture more than art,
With the music of the heart.
Little Mother,
Is it thou
From the beauty on thy brow,
From the bliss which cannot smother
Human feeling where it lies
Lapt in the eternities,
Calling, calling
Words of balm and comfort falling
On my breast
That will not rest?
Little Mary
On thy throne,
With the story
Of thy glory
As a zone,
Where no winds of trouble vary
The unutterable joy
And the peace that cannot cloy,
Little Mother,
Is it thou
Drawn more nearly dearly now?
Or another,
Whom I lost,
When by waves of trouble tost
I was left along and low
In the land of Long-ago?
Little Una, soft and white,
Is it thou,
From the splendour infinite
Fain to bow
With thy blessings
And caressings
Framed in tender sounds and tunes
Sweet as roses of all Junes,
On this gray and care-worn head
And my heart already dead?
Do I hear my children crying,
Crying, crying,
For me yet,
In that ghostly music dying,
Dying, dying,
For the one they can't forget?
Up and down and high and low,
Soft and slow,
Melodies of Eden blow
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
Out of heaven
Unto earth
From the darkness and the dearth.
Little brother
Is it thou,
Christ, in answer to my vow,
Not another,
With the thorns all turned to stars
And bright jewels where were scars?
Art Thou speaking
To my soul,
As those echoes run and roll,
Through the frost and shadows wreaking
All their icy wrath and pain
On my eyes that upward strain,
But in vain—
But in vain?
Hear the voices swelling, swelling
Through the night and telling, telling
What on earth we never know,
As they faintly ebb and flow;
Hopes and fears and joys and sorrows
Sweeter than the sweetest morrows,
Truths that in the bosom flutter
Which no mortal yet may utter
To his fellow,
Till the yellow
Sheaves of garnered toils and times
Murmur with those evening chimes
Prophecies of peace and wonder
In new life,
And the strains above and under
All our strife;
Hear the voices ringing, ringing
Messages of larger hope,
Like the angels singing, singing
As the gates of Eden ope.
But the secret that they tell
Though in part,
As they gently swoon and swell,
To my heart;
Is that it were only vain
To pursue by quest or pain
Beauty that has no one dress,
And through changes
Flits and ranges,
Now as love, now happiness;
That is never seen till past,
And when on the clouds before
Shadows of the truth are cast,
While we wonder and adore.
When we seem to lay our hold
On its treasure,
Better far than gain of gold
And all pleasure;
Lo, it melts within the grasp
Of the noblest deed or duty,
Like the melting of the snow:
It eludes the iron clasp
And is gone—and where is Beauty?
In the land of Long-ago.