THE pull-wheel whirled in the bell-tower, The bell heaved up to yawn; Its looming shoulder sank in the dark Like a sleeper's waked ere dawn. The priest cried up the stair "Now who has dared to pass, With never a breath of the holy words And never a coin for a mass?" The sexton moaned as he wrought "For no earth-dead do I toll; There's a wife a-bed, and I wistfully ring A knell for a new-born soul. "For when a child is born A spirit must leave God's house; And is not that the blindest death, Numbest, most piteous?" "And how many years do you toll?" "Ah God, if I only knew I might learn the place where Heaven is, And a light-swift path thereto." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FORGETFULNESS by HAROLD HART CRANE THE CRADLE SONG OF THE POOR by ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER TWELVE ARTICLES by JONATHAN SWIFT COMPOSED BY THE SEA-SIDE NEAR CALAIS [AUGUST 1802] by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH MYRRHA by VITTORIO AMEDEO ALFIERI |