Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE BELLS OF RONCEVAUX, by THOMAS WALSH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE BELLS OF RONCEVAUX, by                    
First Line: You can hear them as you go
Last Line: To the bells of roncevaux.
Alternate Author Name(s): Gill, Roderick; Strange, Garrett
Subject(s): Bells; Monasteries; Abbeys


YOU can hear them as you go
While the mules creep higher, higher
Where the torrents overflow
And each summit lifts a spire;
Through the vales you hear them soaring
In a silvery chant adoring—
Hark, the bells of Roncevaux!

Lone the proud old abbey stands
Dreaming over lost Navarre;
Stony lie the folded hands.
Stony gaze by lamp and star
They who lit the world of story
With the soul's first glint of glory—
'Neath the bells of Roncevaux.

Knightly comrades, row on row
In their mountain shrine, forgotten
By their feudal towns below,—
There they lie—Fame's first-begotten—
Helms collapsed and hauberks rust—
Dust where all the stars are dust—
Round the bells of Roncevaux.

Through our hearts their visions steal
Out of ancient midnights telling
How they woke the Christmas peal,
How their Easter chimes went swelling
Through the springtime morns of old
Ere the world was deaf and cold
To the bells of Roncevaux.





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