THE HAND-BELL RINGERS; OR WITHIN AND WITHOUT by AGNES MARY F. ROBINSON

I.

LAST night the ringers came over the moor
To ring us in Christmas-tide;
They entered in at our garden door:
We sat and watched the yule logs roar,
They stood on the grass outside.

We sat within, i' the warmth and light,
The fire leapt red and blue;
Each frosted lamp was a moon of white
The growing plants half hid from sight,
Letting the radiance through.

The white and the red lights filled the room,
And flickered on bracket and ledge,
On the pale sweet pinks and the cactus bloom,
With its crimson flush, and the leafy gloom
O' the sill's geranium-hedge.

We sat, making merry, shut in from the rain
And the Christmas cold outside.
But hark! the carol goes pealing again;
The ringers are out in the cold, 'tis plain,
Ringing in Christmas-tide.

II.

I left the fire with its flicker and roar,
And drew the curtains back.
On the edge of the grass stood the ringers four;
A dim white railing behind, and the moor
A waste of endless black,

With, somewhere burning, aloof, afar,
A single lonely light;
But never a glimmer of moon or star
To show where the unseen heavens are
Through the whole dark width o' the night.

In front of the rail, in a shadowy row,
Stood the ringers, dim and brown;
Their faces burned with a faded glow,
And spots of light, now high, now low,
With the bells leapt up and down.

But gaze! the figure, barely guessed,
The shadowy face grows clear:
The tall, red prophet who leads the rest,
The sallow lad with the hollow chest;
You see them all appear.

You catch the way they look and stand,
The listening clench of the eyes;
The great round hand-bells, golden and grand,
Grasped a couple in either hand,
And the arms that fall and rise.

III.

So much I behold, and would never complain,
As much and no more could I see.
As clear as air is the window pane
'Twixt me in the light and them in the rain,
Yet strange they look to me!

Grim, solemn figures, all in a row,
Intent on the carol they ring;
But I see no less i' the pane aglow
The flowers reflected, and to and fro
The flames their flicker fling.

My ribbon breast-knot dances across
The leader's solemn brow;
The moony lamps burn low i' the moss;
And my own pale face, as it seems, they toss,
With the ringing hand-bells now.

So dark is the night, so dark, alas!
I look on the world, no doubt;
Yet I see no less i' the window-glass,
The room within than the trees and grass
And men I would study without.

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

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