Falling at intervals upon the ear,
In cadence sweet—now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again, and louder still,
Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on.
The same poet makes Alexander Selkirk lament on his solitary isle—
The sound of the church going bell
These valleys and rocks never heard,
Ne’er sigh’d at the sound of a knell,
Or smiled when a Sabbath appeared.
Longfellow has several tender references to [p 123] church bells. He sets the Bells of Lynn to ring a requiem of the dying day. He mounts the lofty tower of “the belfry old and brown” in the market place of Bruges—