Classic Poem

Ring, Easter bells, from earth to heaven!
Ring down from heaven to earth!
The brightest hopes of human hearts
Now celebrate their birth!

Ring, Easter bells, from golden throats!
Ring all your meanings out!
Roll through the sky your liquid notes,
And sweep away our doubt.

I hear them from that far-off dawn
Where man lay crouched in night:
They rung the hated darkness out,
And hailed the rising Light!

I hear them from the shivering caves,
Where, fleeing from the cold,
Men longed and waited for the sun
To light his fires of gold.

I hear them ring from hill to hill,
And through each valley wide,
As from the south the conquering spring
Buds forth on every side.

They ring, these gladsome Easter bells,
In green leaf, in bright flower;
They toll the knell of winter's death;
They chant life's conquering power.

I hear them by the sacred graves
Where weep the dews of even;
From skies that overarch the soul,
They ring down hopes of heaven.

I hear them from Judea's hills:
The grave had been a prison;
But hope took on an angel form
And shouted, " Christ has risen! "

No longer now the dead go down
To sheol, hades, sleep:
They live and think, and for us still
Their old-time love they keep.

These Easter bells, the bells of hope,
Though age-long wrongs endure,
I hear them ring a coming time
Of gladness for the poor.

Above the wail of sin and crime,
The discord harsh of wrong,
I hear the babel cries attuned
To joyous tones of song.

Of ugliness transformed; of hate
Changed into love; of doubt
Flowering in faith; of old decay
In progress blooming out;

Of every evil trampled down, —
Of these the chorus swells!
" God's kingdom comes, and this is man's. "
Ring out the Easter bells!

" Light, life, and joy! Light, life, and joy!
They'll conquer at the last.
They'll conquer, conquer, — light, life, joy! "
Each bell-tongue echoes fast.

" God lives! truth lives! love lives! lives! lives! "
This message each tongue tells.
" Work, then, O man! and thou shalt sing! "
Ring out the Easter bells.