They drift from the moss where the deep shadows sleep,
Where the embers are dead in the sod,
As the past of the gray world lies tented and still
On the hills where her armies have trod.

From the past, to the uttermost ends of the earth,
By the veil of an unstriven goal,
For the ringers that bend in the shadowy night
Are ringing the bells of the soul.

Our hearts are the altars that lift in the gloom,
By the white light of love that will burn,
When the candle of fame shall be charred at the ends,
And chaos and darkness return.

Unheard is the tone in the struggle and surge
Of the world in its mad race for life,
For it comes to the silent who sitteth apart,
And kneels in the shadow of strife.

The belfry is hid in the temple of God,
And the gates of the soul open wide,
For the priests are our own, and the censer they swing,
Is the love of the Christ-purified.

They drift from the sod where the rain and the dew
Drop down on the violet's head,—
And the shadowy sweep is the passage of souls,
For the ringers that serve are the dead.

They have platted a scourge from the ropes of the past,
For the changers of money are there,
And our hands have polluted the temple of God,
With the sellers of doves on the stair.

They have driven us out, and the robes that we wore
Lie low by the altar of prayer,
Where the blood print was made by the finger of God,
And the sins of the earth are laid bare.

Be still, Oh! thou world! with thy woe and thy tears;
Canst hear the sweet melody roll?
For the ringers that bend in the shadowy night
Are ringing the bells of the soul.

Let it break through the crusts and the frosts of the years,
Let it fall on the waste and the wild;
Let it come like a thought from the cradle of dreams,
As it comes to the heart of a child.