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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


BELLS by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN

Poet Analysis

First Line: WHAT MASTER SINGER, WITH WHAT GLORY AMAZED
Last Line: THAT UNKNOWN POET'S MASTERPIECE OF BELLS.
Subject(s): BELLS;

WHAT master singer, with what glory amazed,
Heard one day listening on the lonely air
The tune of bells ere yet a bell was raised
To throne it over field and flood? Who dare
Deny him demi-god, that so could win
The music uncreate, that so could wed
Music and hue -- till, when the bells begin,
Song colours, colour sings? Beauty so bred
Enspheres each hamlet through the English shires,
And utters from ten thousand peeping spires
(Or huge in starlight) to the outmost farms
Sweet, young, grand, old. The country's lustiest arms
Leap to the time till the whole sky retells
That unknown poet's masterpiece of bells.



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