The Bells

When o'er the street the morning peal is flung     From yon tall belfry with the brazen tongue,     Its wide vibrations, wafted by the gale,     To each far listener tell a different tale.     The sexton, stooping to the quivering floor     Till the great caldron spills its brassy roar,     Whirls the hot axle, counting, one by one,     Each dull concussion, till his task is done.     Toil's patient daughter, when the welcome note     Clangs through the silence from the steeple's throat,     Streams, a white unit, to the checkered street,     Demure, but guessing whom she soon shall meet;     The bell, responsive to her secret flame,     With every note repeats her lover's name.     The lover, tenant of the neighboring lane,     Sighing, and fearing lest he sigh in vain,     Hears the stern accents, as they come and go,     Their only burden one despairing No!     Ocean's rough child, whom many a shore has known     Ere homeward breezes swept him to his own,     Starts at the echo as it circles round,     A thousand memories kindling with the sound;     The early favorite's unforgotten charms,     Whose blue initials stain his tawny arms;     His first farewell, the flapping canvas spread,     The seaward streamers crackling overhead,     His kind, pale mother, not ashamed to weep     Her first-born's bridal with the haggard deep,     While the brave father stood with tearless eye,     Smiling and choking with his last good-by.     'T is but a wave, whose spreading circle beats,     With the same impulse, every nerve it meets,     Yet who shall count the varied shapes that ride     On the round surge of that aerial tide!     O child of earth! If floating sounds like these     Steal from thyself their power to wound or please,     If here or there thy changing will inclines,     As the bright zodiac shifts its rolling signs,     Look at thy heart, and when its depths are known,     Then try thy brother's, judging by thine own,     But keep thy wisdom to the narrower range,     While its own standards are the sport of change,     Nor count us rebels when we disobey     The passing breath that holds thy passion's sway.