Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BELLMAN, by ARTHUR GLYN PRYS-JONES


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BELLMAN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oyez, oyez'...I hear him cry
Last Line: Clanging his bell as if in town.
Subject(s): Bells; Messengers; News; Wales; Welshmen; Welshwomen


I

'OYEZ, oyez' ... I hear him cry
About the streets to passers-by:
No shrill-toned Arab on a tower
More constant is when falls his hour
Than this muezzin of the crowd
Who rings amain — and calls aloud
In accents clear and terse and thorough
The annals of this ancient borough.

II

I think that if, perchance, to-day
Along the cliffs that fringe the bay
The roaring resurrection broke
In trumpet blast and swirling smoke
He'd stand and shout about the way
'Oyez, oyez' ...
And lift his faithful bell and run
To give the news to everyone.

III

And then, while all the streets and houses
Rocked (like clubmen at carouses),
He'd stand and watch, aloof, afar,
The splendour of that mighty war
Of sphere and planet that in thunder
Crashed and flamed and surged as under:
Till suddenly ... I see him well ...
Lose his balance but keep his bell,
And hurtle over the world's dim border
Into the vat of that vast disorder ...
And poor souls lost in the starless spaces
Under the void where no sound flows
Would feel a smile on their mirthless faces
As John the Bellman downward goes ...
John the Bellman rumbling down,
Clanging his bell as if in town.





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