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.
Pages:
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143