PURGATORY.
OLD BELLS.
Ring out merrily,
Loudly, cheerily,
Blithe old bells from the steeple tower.
Hopefully, fearfully,
Joyfully, tearfully,
Moveth the bride from her maiden bower.
Cloud there is none in the bright summer sky,
Sunshine flings benison down from on high;
Children sing loud as the train moves along,
"Happy the bride that the sun shineth on."
Knell out drearily,
Measured out wearily,
Sad old bells from the steeple gray.
Priests chanting slowly,
Solemnly, slowly,
Passeth the corpse from the portal to-day.
Drops from the leaden clouds heavily fall,
Drippingly over the plume and the pall;
Murmur old folk, as the train moves along,
"Happy the dead that the rain raineth on."
Toll at the hour of prime,
Matin and vesper chime,
Loved old bells from the steeple high;
Rolling, like holy waves,
Over the lowly graves,
Floating up, prayer-fraught, into the sky.
Solemn the lesson your lightest notes teach,
Stern is the preaching your iron tongues preach;
Ringing in life from the bud to the bloom;
Ringing the dead to their rest in the tomb.
Peal out evermore—
Peal as ye pealed of yore, Brave old bells, on each holy day.
In sunshine and gladness,
Through clouds and through sadness,
Bridal and burial have both passed away.
Tell us life's pleasures with death are still rife;
Tell us that death ever leadeth to life;
Life is our labor and death is our rest,
If happy the living, the dead are the blest.
—Popular Poetry.