The Bells Of Prayer.
During the prevalence of the great plague at Milan, “at the break of day, at noon, and at night a bell of the cathedral gave the signal for reciting certain prayers which had been ordered by the archbishop, and this was followed by the bells of the other churches. Then persons were seen at the windows, and a confused blending of voices and groans was heard which inspired sorrow, not, however, unmixed with consolation.”
Stern Death, the tyrant, had swept along
With trailing robes through the dusty mart.
And laid his hand, that is white and chill,
On the city's heart.
The Lombard City of olden ways
Over its sorrow and wild despair
A cry sent up to the unseen Throne
In an earnest prayer.
A lord that is dead as a peasant is,
And a peasant dead is as a lord;
The angel stood at the city's gate
With his lifted sword!
The tongues of bells in the steeple-tops
Sent on the breath of the baleful air
A call for the people far and near
To evening prayer.
At the sound of bells the weeping ceased,
The heart of the thousand stilled its moan,
The name of God was uttered aloud
With the bells' sad tone.
And the gleaming crosses pointing up,
Like the gold of crowns that princes wear,
Seemed in the gray of the changeless sky
As signs of prayer.
And the women's eyes were wet with tears,
Their desolate souls were wrung with pain,
For the dead asleep in their silent graves
Through the sun and rain.
In the dawn and noon and dusk it rose,
Threading its way up the narrow stair—
The Catholic cry—when the bells were rung
For the people's prayer.