The Lay of the Bell

PREPARATION FOR FOUNDING THE BELL.

FIRMLY walled within the soil

Stands the firebaked mould of clay.
Courage, comrades! Now for toil!
For we cast THE BELL to-day.
Sweat must trickle now
Down the burning brow,
If the work may boast of beauty;
Still 'tis Heaven must bless our duty.

A word of earnest exhortation

The serious task before us needs:
Beguiled by cheerful conversation,

How much more lightly toil proceeds!
Then let us here, with best endeavor,

Weigh well what these our labors mean:
Contempt awaits that artist ever

Who plods through all, the mere machine;

But Thought makes Man to dust superior,
And he alone is though tfulsouled

Who ponders in his heart's interior
Whatever shape his hand may mould.

Gather first the pine-tree wood,

Only be it wholly dry,
That the flame, with subtle flood,
Through the furnace-chink may fly.
Now the brass is in,
Add the alloy of tin,
That the ingredients may, while warm,
Take the essential fluid form.

OFFICES OF THE BELL.

What here in caverns by the power

Of fire our mastering fingers frame,
Hereafter from the belfry tower

Will vindicate its makers' aim;
'Twill speak to Man with voice unfailing

In latest years of after-days,
Will echo back the mourner's wailing,

Or move the heart to prayer and praise;
In many a varying cadence ringing,

The willing BELL will publish far
The fitful changes hourly springing

Beneath Man's ever-shifting star.

Surface-bubbles glittering palely
Show the mixture floweth well:

Mingle now the quick alcali;

That will help to found the BELL.
Purified from scum
Must the mass become,
That the tone, escaping free,
Clear and deep and full may be.

THE BIRTH-DAY BELL.

For, with a peal of joyous clangor

It hails the infant boy, that in
The soft embrace of sleep and languor

Life's tiring travel doth begin.
His brighter lot and darker doom
Lie shrouded in the Future's womb.
Watched over by his tender mother,
His golden mornings chase each other;
Swift summers fly like javelins by.
The woman's yoke the stripling spurneth;

He rushes wildly forth to roam
The wide world over, and returneth

When years have wheeled — a stranger — home.
Arrayed in Beauty's magic might,

A vision from the Heaven that's o'er him,
With conscious blush and eye of light,

The bashful virgin stands before him.
Then flies the youth his wonted sports,

For in his heart a nameless feeling
Is born; the lonesome dell he courts,

And down his cheek the tears are stealing.
He hangs upon her silver tone,

He tracks with joy her very shadow,

And culls, to deck his lovely one,

The brightest flowers that gem the meadow.
Oh, golden time of Love's devotion,

When tenderest hopes and thrills have birth,
When hearts are drunk with blest emotion,

And Heaven itself shines out on Earth!
Were thy sweet season ever vernal!
Were early Youth and Love eternal!

Ha! the pipes appear embrowned,

So this little staff I lower:
'Twill be time, I wis, to found,
If the fluid glaze it o'er.

Courage, comrades! Move!
Quick the mixture prove.
If the soft but well unite
With the rigid, all is right.

THE WEDDING-BELL.

For, where the Strong protects the Tender,
Where Might and Mildness join, they render

A sweet result, content ensuring;
Let those then prove who make election,
That keart meets heart in blent affection,

Else Bliss is brief, and Grief enduring!
In the bride's rich ringlets brightly

Shines the flowery coronal,
As the BELL, now pealing lightly,

Bids her to the festal hall.
Fairest scene of Man's elysian

World 1 thou closest life's short May:

With the zone and veil the Vision
Melts in mist and fades for aye!

The rapture has fled,
Still the love has not perished;

The blossom is dead,

But the fruit must be cherished.

The husband muot out,

He must mix in the rout,

In the struggle and strife

And the clangor of life,

Must join in its jangle,

Must wrestle and wrangle,

O'erreaching, outrunning,

By force and by cunning,

That Fortune propitious

May smile on his wishes.
Then riches flow in to his uttermost wishes;
His warehouses glitter with all that is precious;

The storehouse, the mansion,

Soon call for expansion,

And busied within is

The orderly matron,

The little ones' mother,

Who is everywhere seen

As she rules like a queen,

The instructress of maidens

And curber of boys;

i Mit dem Gurtel, mit dem Schleitr,
Reiszt der schone Wahn entzwei.

Schiller here alludes to that custom of antiquity according to which the bride-
groom unloosed the zone and removed the veil of his betrothed. Among the an-
cients, to unbind the cestits, and to espouse, were expressions meaning the same
thing. Hence the well-known line of Catullus —

Quod possit zonam solvere virgineam.

a Here, and in a few subsequent passages, Schiller omits his rhymes.

And seldom she lingers
In plying her fingers,
But doubles the gains
By her prudence and pains,

And winds round the spindle the threads at her leisure,
And fills odoriferous coffers with treasure,
And storeth her shining receptacles full
Of snowy-white linen and pale-colored wool,
And blends with the Useful the Brilliant and Pleasing,
And toils without ceasing.
And the father counts his possessions now,
As he paces his house's commanding terrace,
And he looks around with a satisfied brow
On his pillar-like trees in rows unending,

And his barns and rooms that are filling amain,
And his granaries under their burden bending,
And his wavy fields of golden grain,
And speaks with exultation,
"Fast as the Earth's foundation,
Against all ill secure,
Long shall my house endure!"
But ah! with Destiny and Power
No human paction lasts an hour,
And Ruin rides a restless courser.

Good! The chasm is guarded well;

Now, my men! commence to found;
Yet, before ye run the BELL,

Breathe a prayer to Heaven around!
AY reach the stopple-cork!
GOD protect our work!
Smoking to the bow it flies,
While the flames around it rise.

THE FIRE-BELL.

Fire works for good with noble force
So long as Man controls its course;
And all he rears of strong or slight
Is debtor to this heavenly might.
But dreadful is this heavenly might
When, bursting forth in dead of night,
Unloosed and raging, wide and wild
It ranges, Nature's chainless child!
Woe! when oversweeping bar,

With a fury naught can stand,
Through the stifled streets afar

Rolls the monstrous volurnebrand!
For the elements ever war

With the works of human hand.
From the cloud

Blessings gush;
From the cloud

Torrents rush;
From the cloud alike
Come the bolts that strike.
LAEUM peals from lofty steeple
Rouse the people!
Red, like blood,

Heaven is flashing!
How it shames the daylight's flood!

Hark! what crashing
Down the streets!
Smoke ascends in volumes!
Skyward flares the flame in columns!

Through the tent-like lines of streets
Rapidly as wind it fleets!
Now the white air, waxing hotter,
Glows a furnace — pillars totter —
Rafters crackle — casements rattle —
Mothers fly-
Children cry —
Under ruins whimper cattle.
All is horror, noise, affright!
Bright as noontide glares the night!

Swung from hand to hand with zeal along

By the throng,

Speeds the pail. In bow-like form
Sprays the hissing watershower,

But the madly-howling storm

Aids the flames with wrathful power;

Round the shrivelled fruit they curl;

Grappling with the granary-stores,

Now they blaze through roof and floors,

And with upward-dragging whirl,

Even as though they strove to bear

Earth herself aloft in air,

Shoot into the vaulted Void,

Giant-vast!

Hope is past:

Man submits to GOD'S decree,

And, all stunned and silently,

Sees his earthly All destroyed!

Burned a void

Is the Dwelling:

Wi nter winds its wailing dirge are knelling;

In the skeleton window-pits

Horror sits,

And exposed to Heaven's wide woof

Lies the roof.

One glance only

On the lonely

Sepulchre of all his wealth below

Doth the man bestow;

Then turns to tread the world's broad path.

It matters not what wreck the wrath

Of lire hath brought on house and land,
One treasured blessing still he hath,

His Best Beloved beside him stand!

Happily at length, and rightly,
Doth it fill the loamy frame:
Think ye will it come forth brightly?
Will it yet fulfil our aim?
If we fail to found?
If the mould rebound?
Ah! perchance, when least we deem,
Fortune may defeat our scheme.

In hope our work we now confide

To Earth's obscure but hallowed bosom;

Therein the sower, too, doth hide

The seed he hopes shall one day blossom,

If bounteous Heaven shall so decide.

But holier, dearer Seed than this
We bury oft, with tears, in Earth,

And trust that from the Grave's abyss

'Twill bloom forth yet in brighter birth.

THE PASSING BELL.

Hollowly and slowly,

By the BELL'S disastrous tongue,
Is the melancholy

Knell of death and burial rung.
Heavily those muffled accents mourn
Some one journeying to the last dark bourne.

Ah! it is the spouse, the dear one!
Ah! it is that faithful mother!
She it is that thus is borne,
Sadly borne and rudely torn
By the sable Prince of Spectres
From her fondest of protectors —
From the children forced to flee
Whom she bore him lovingly,
Whom she gazed on day and night
With a mother's deep delight.
Ah! the house's bands, that held

Each to each, are doomed to sever:
She that there as mother dwelled

Roams the Phantomland forever.
Truest friend and best arranger!

Thou art gone, and gone for aye;
And a loveless hireling stranger

O'er thine orphaned ones will sway.

Till the BELL shall cool and harden,
Labor's heat a while may cease;

Like the wild bird in the garden,
Each may play or take his ease.

Soon as twinkles Ilesper,
Soon as chimes the Vesper,
All the workman's toils are o'er,
But the master frets the more.

Wandering through the lonely greenwood,

Blithely hies the merry rover

Forward towards his humble hovel.

Bleating sheep are homeward wending,

And the herds of

Sleek and broad-browed cattle come with

Lowing warning

Each to fill its stall till morning.

Townward rumbling

Keels the wagon,

Corn-o'erladeri,

On whose sheaves

Shine the leaves

Of the Garland fair,

While the youthful band of reapers

To the dance repair.

Street and market now grow stiller:

Round the social hearth assembling,

Gayly crowd the house's inmates,

As the towngate closes creaking;

And the earth is

Robed in sable,

But the night, which wakes affright

In the souls of conscience-haunted men,

Troubles not the tranquil denizen,

For he knows the eye of Law unsleeping

Watch is keeping.

Blessed Order! heavendescended

Maiden! Early did she band
Like with like, in union blended,

Social cities early planned;
She the fierce barbarian brought

From his forest-haunts of wildness;
She the peasant's hovel sought,

And redeemed his mind to mildness,
And first wove that everdearest band,
Fond attachment to our Fatherland!

Thousand hands in ceaseless motion

All in mutual aid unite,
Every art with warm devotion

Eager to reveal its might.
All are bonded in affection;

Each, rejoicing in his sphere,
Safe in Liberty's protection,

Laughs to scorn the scoffer's sneer.
Toil is polished Man's vocation:

Praises are the meed of Skill;
Kings may vaunt their crown and station,

We will vaunt our Labor still.

Mildest Quiet!

Sweetest Concord!

Gently, gently

Hover over this our town!

Ne'er may that dark day be witnessed

"When the dread exterminators

Through our vales shall rush, destroying,

When that azure

Softly painted by the rays of

Sunset fair
Shall (oh, horror !) with the blaze of

Burning towns and hamlets glare!

Now, companions, break the mould,
For its end and use have ceased:
On the structure 'twill unfold
Soul and sight alike shall feast.
Swing the hammer! Swing!
Till the covering spring.
Shivered first the mould must lie
Ere the BELL may mount on high.

The Master's hand, what time he wills,
May break the mould; but woe to ye

If, spreading far in fiery rills,

The glowing ore itself shall free!

With roar as when deep thunder crashes

It blindly blasts the house to ashes,

And as from Hell's abysmal deep

The deathtide rolls with lava sweep.

Where lawless force is awless master

Stands naught of noble, naught sublime;
Where Freedom conies achieved by Crime

Her fruits are tumult and disaster.

THE TOCSIN, OR ALARM-BELL.

Woe! when in cities smouldering long

The pent-up train explodes at length!
"Woe! when a vast and senseless throng

Shake off their chains hy desperate strength!
Then to the bellrope rushes Riot,

And rings, and sounds the alarm afar,
And, destined but for tones of quiet,

The TOCSIN peals To War! To War!

"Equality and Liberty!"

They shout: the rabble seize on swords;
And streets and halls fill rapidly

With cutthroat gangs and ruffian hordes.
Then women change to wild hyenas,

And mingle cruelty with jest,
And o'er their prostrate foe are seen, as

With panther-teeth they tear his breast.
All holy shrines go trampled under:

The Wise and Good in horror flee;
Life's shamefaced bands are ripped asunder,

And cloakless Riot wantons free.
The lion roused by shout of stranger,

The tiger's talons, these appal —
But worse, and charged with deadlier danger,

Is reckless Man in Frenzy's thrall!
Woe, woe to those who attempt illuming

Eternal blindness by the rays
Of Truth! — they flame abroad, consuming

Surrounding nations in their blaze!

GOD hath given ray soul delight!

Glancing like a star of gold,
From its shell, all pure and bright,
Comes the metal kernel rolled.
Brim and rim, it gleams
As when sunlight beams;
And the armorial shield and crest
Tell that Art hath wrought its best.

In, in! our task is done —
In, in, companions every one!
By what name shall we now baptize the BELL?
CONCOKDIA will become it well:
For oft in concord shall its pealing loud
Assemble many a gay and many a solemn crowd.

THE DESTINATION OF THE BELL.

And this henceforward be its duty,

For which 'twas framed at first in beauty;

High o'er this world of lowly labor

In Heaven's blue concave let it rise,
And heave aloft, the thunder's neighbor,

In commerce with the starry skies.
There let it chorus with the story

Of the resplendent planetsphere,
Which nightly hymns its MAKER'S glory,

And guides the garland-crowned year.
Be all its powers devoted only

To things eternal and sublime,

As hour by hour it tracks the lonely

And forwardwinging flight of Time!
To destiny an echo lending,

But never doomed itself to feel,
Forever be it found attending

Each change of Life's revolving wheel;
And as its tone, when tolling loudest,

Dies on the listener's ear away,
So let it teach that all that's proudest

In human might must thus decay!

Now attach the ropes — now move,

Heave the BELL from this its prison,
Till it hath to Heaven above
And the realm of Sound arisen.
Heave it! heave it! — there —
Now it swings in air.
Joy to this our city may it presage!
PEACE attend its first harmonious message!