Chain Ringing

 

They say in old Byzantium there hung a bell of gold,

It swung beneath the library dome to summon young and old,

A burnished thing both mighty wrought and stunning to the eye,

Whose sonorous note caressed the tower and echoed out the sky.

 

But golden bells are gilded waste their glory little worth,

Too precious and too soft at heart to clamour on the earth,

The brightest metal brought to base too dull for ringing true,

But something in the ring of bells sets sounding me and you.

 

An iron bell will clatter clang and set the your ears to smart,

No gentle form this clappered fiend will cut you to the heart,

No blessing knell for Christendom from this unholy sprite,

That wrecks the halls of solitude and breaks the rest of night.

 

Some mighty bells like Ben and Tom we name as big or great,

With Sounding Michael resonant to steer the ship of state,

For in both rhyme and rhapsody we laud their mighty call,

As if the very voice of god was speaking to us all.

 

What founderer’s art what founders wit first gave these titans life,

What alchemy of molten bronze brought music from the strife,

What was it there in Whitechapel that made base metal sing,

And gave to us a march through time with every measured ring.

 

And still they are calling out to me from their eyrie of infinite dread,

Like a surfeit of Sunday sermons they have drawn me awake from my bed,

They summon in anger cutting my soul and I hear as they render the sky,

An angelus sounding the passing of years, the accusers my life can’t deny.

 

But there’s joy in the ringing, laughter too, sadness and sorrow and pain,

Though bells have no feelings they mirror our moods and offer a mirrored refrain,

So always remember the sound of the bells may just be the call to the feast,

As clamouring bells that have heralded war will tell when the battle has ceased.

 

One day the bells will be ringing for me but I hope they will toll with mirth,

The bells that happy have swung for me through all my days on earth,

They led me to knowledge, counted my hours, serving me more than well,

And if I must sing in the eons to come let me sing with the song of the bell.