Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO THE OLD COLLEGE BELL, by JAMES RYDER RANDALL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO THE OLD COLLEGE BELL, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Drag the old monitor down
Last Line: To honor the bonny old bell!
Subject(s): Bells; Universities & Colleges


DIED, at Georgetown College, aged 85, a well-beloved chime. Disease, a
complication of old age and too many hard knocks.

DRAG the old monitor down,
Down with a sob and a knell;
Who throughout College and town
Compassed his duties so well?
Weave, O my Muse! an evergreen crown
To honor the bonny old bell!

The morn, the noon, and the night,
The night, the noon, and the morn,
When Nature was brilliant and bright
When Nature was naked and shorn,
It pealed the departure of life-giving light
Or told that Aurora was born.

In winter and summer and fall,
In fall and winter and spring,
When zephyrs breathed languor to all,
When tempests around it would sing;
Before or beyond the gleam of old Sol
This Memnon of duty would ring.

Fourscore snows and five,
Rain and dust and sleet
Have found the brave watcher alive
And never deserting his beat;
In some of its music religion could thrive—
When it swung out the "Angelus" sweet.

No more shall its ominous tone
Rouse us from slumber and bed;
No more shall it solemnly moan
Its requiem toll for the dead;
Its last trump for dinner forever was blown
When the soul of its melody fled.

Drag the old monitor down,
Down with a sob and a knell;
Who throughout College or town
Compassed his duties so well?
Weave, O my Muse! an evergreen crown
To honor the bonny old bell!





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