The Oratories: Distant Church Bells

Up steeps reclining in th' Autumnal calm,
The woodland nook retir'd, and quiet field,
Upon the tranquil noon
The Sunday chime is borne ;
Rising and sinking on the silent air,
With many a dying fall most musical,
And fitful bird hard by
Blending harmoniously.

The moon is looking on the sunny earth ;
The little fleecy cloud stands still in Heaven,
Making the blue expanse
More still and beautiful.

If aught there be upon this rude bad earth,
Which Angels from their happy spheres above
Could lean and listen to,
It were those peaceful sounds.

There is unearthly balm upon the air,
And holier lights which are with Sunday born,
That man may lay aside
Himself, and be at rest.

The week-day cares, like shackles, from us fall,
As from our Lord the clothings of the grave ;
And we too seem with Him
To walk in endless morn.

Not that these musical wings would bear us up
On buoyant thoughts too high for sinful man,
But that they speak the best
Which earth hath left to give,
Of better hopes, and prayer, and penitence,
Rising in incense on the sacred air
From many a woodland spire,
Or hill-embosom'd tower;
That sadness, and privation, and earth's loss
In the great sea of goodness are forgot,
And sense of stern decay
Is lost in sweet repose.

So deep are all things stamp'd with vanity,
So fading, and so fleeting, and so frail, —
And we too, while we speak,
Dropping ourselves away, —
That envy, and unkindness, and revenge,
In very pity for themselves might weep,
Coping with a poor shade,
With real sad unrest.

It may be that our hopes may be deceived,
And we found wanting ; yet a little while
We 'gainst ourselves will hope,
And against hope rejoice.

For earth hath nothing else found worth our care,
And if we lose her all, we nothing lose,
So poor while it remain'd,
And so short-liv'd when gone !

But if we are beguil'd by her false charms,
By her enthralling ways and prospects fair,
Her promises of good
The shadow of a shade,
Fleeting behind to-morrow — on — and on —
If we, by her vain impotence beguil'd,
Lose our great being's end —
We are beguil'd indeed !