O' CARTMEL bells ring soft to-night, And Cartmel bells ring clear, But I lie far away to-night, Listening with my dear; Listening in a frosty land Where all the bells are still And the small-windowed bell-towers stand Dark under heath and hill. I thought that, with each dying year, As long as life should last The bells of Cartmel I should hear Ring out an aged past: The plunging, mingling sounds increase Darkness's depth and height, The hollow valley gains more peace And ancientness to-night: The loveliness, the fruitfulness, The power of life lived there Return, revive, more closely press Upon that midnight air. But many deaths have place in men Before they come to die; Joys must be used and spent, and then Abandoned and passed by. Earth is not ours; no cherished space Can hold us from life's flow, That bears us thither and thence by ways We knew not we should go. O, Cartmel bells ring loud, ring clear, Through midnight deep and hoar, A year new-born, and I shall hear The Cartmel bells no more. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ALICE IN WONDERLAND: THE WALRUS AND THE CARPENTER by CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON A SONG TO MITHRAS by RUDYARD KIPLING TAPESTRY TREES by WILLIAM MORRIS (1834-1896) THE HOUSE OF LIFE: 86. LOST DAYS by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI PROMETHEUS BOUND: PROMETHEUS IN THE EARTHQUAKE by AESCHYLUS |