Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous

by Abram Joseph Ryan

But list! there soundeth a bell,
With a mystical ding, dong, dell!
Is it, say, is it a funeral knell?
Solemn and slow,
Now loud — now low;
Pealing the notes of human woe
Over the graves lying under the snow!
Ah! that pitiless ding, dong, dell!
Trembling along the gale,
Under the stars and over the snow.
Why is it? whence is it sounding so?
Is it a toll of a burial bell?

Or is it a spirit's wail?
Solemnly, mournfully,
Sad — and how lornfully!
Ding, dong, dell!
Whence is it? who can tell?
And the marvelous notes they sink and swell,
Sadder, and sadder, and sadder still!
How the sounds tremble! how they thrill!
Every tone
So like a moan;
As if the strange bell's stranger clang
Throbbed with a terrible human pang.

Ding, dong, dell!
Dismally, drearily,
Ever so wearily.
Far off and faint as a requiem plaint
Floats the deep-toned voice of the mystic bell
Piercingly — thrillingly,
Icily — chillingly,
Near — and more near,
Drearer — and more drear,
Soundeth the wild, weird, ding, dong, dell!

Now sinking lower,
It tolleth slower!
I list, and I hear its sound no more.
And now, methinks, I know that bell,
Know it well — know its knell —
For I often heard it sound before.

It is a bell — yet not a bell
Whose sound may reach the ear!
It tolls a knell — yet not a knell
Which earthly sense may hear.
In every soul a bell of dole
Hangs ready to be tolled;
And from that bell a funeral knell
Is often outward rolled;
And memory is the sexton gray
Who tolls the dreary knell;
And nights like this he loves to sway
And swing his mystic bell.
'Twas that I heard and nothing more,
This lonely Christmas eve;
Then, for the dead I'll meet no more,
At Christmas let me grieve.

Night, be a priest! put your star-stole on
And murmur a holy prayer
Over each grave, and for every one
Lying down lifeless there!

And over the dead stands the high priest, Night,
Robed in his shadowy stole;
And beside him I kneel as his acolyte,
To respond to his prayer of dole.

And list! he begins
That psalm for sins,
The first of the mournful seven;
Plaintive and soft
It rises aloft,
Begging the mercy of Heaven
To pity and forgive,
For the sake of those who live,
The dead who have died unshriven.
Miserere! Miserere!
Still your heart and hush your breath!
The voices of despair and death
Are shuddering through the psalm!
Miserere! Miserere!
Lift your hearts! the terror dies!
Up in yonder sinless skies
The psalms sound sweet and calm!
Miserere! Miserere!
Very low, in tender tones,
The music pleads, the music moans,
"I forgive and have forgiven,
The dead whose hearts were shriven."
De profundis! De profundis!
Psalm of the dead and disconsolate!
Thou hast sounded through a thousand years,
And pealed above ten thousand biers;
And still, sad psalm, you mourn the fate
Of sinners and of just,
When their souls are going up to God,
Their bodies down to dust.
Dread hymn! you wring the saddest tears
From mortal eyes that fall,
And your notes evoke the darkest fears
That human hearts appall!
You sound o'er the good, you sound o'er the bad,
And ever your music is sad, so sad,
We seem to hear murmured in every tone,
For the saintly a blessing; for sinners a curse.
Psalm, sad psalm! you must pray and grieve
Over our dead on this Christmas eve.
De profundis! De profundis!
And the night chants the psalm o'er the mortal clay,
And the spirits immortal from far away,
To the music of hope sing this sweet-toned lay.

You think of the dead on Christmas eve,
Wherever the dead are sleeping,
And we from a land where we may not grieve
Look tenderly down on your weeping.
You think us far, we are very near,
From you and the earth, though parted;
We sing to-night to console and cheer
The hearts of the broken-hearted.
The earth watches over the lifeless clay
Of each of its countless sleepers,
And the sleepless spirits that passed away
Watch over all earth's weepers.
We shall meet again in a brighter land,
Where farewell is never spoken;
We shall clasp each other in hand,
And the clasp shall not be broken;
We shall meet again, in a bright, calm clime,
Where we'll never know a sadness,
And our lives shall be filled, like a Christmas chime,
With rapture and with gladness.
The snows shall pass from our graves away,
And you from the earth, remember;
And the flowers of a bright, eternal May,
Shall follow earth's December.
When you think of us think not of the tomb
Where you laid us down in sorrow;
But look aloft, and beyond earth's gloom,
And wait for the great to-morrow.
And the pontiff, Night, with his star-stole on,
Whispereth soft and low:
Requiescat! Requiescat!

Peace! Peace! to every one
For whom we grieve this Christmas eve,
In their graves beneath the snow.