Classic Poem

Peal on, peal on, I love to hear
The old church ding-dong soft and clear!
The welcome sounds are doubly blest
With future hope and earthly rest.
Yet were no calling changes found
To spread their cheering echoes round,
There's not a place where man may dwell,
But he can hear a Sabbath bell.

Go to the woods, when Winter's song
Howls like a famished wolf along;
Or when the south winds scarcely turn
The light leaves of the trembling fern,
Although no cloister chimes ring there,
The heart is called to faith and prayer;
For all Creation's voices tell
The tidings of the Sabbath bell.

Go to the billows, let them pour
In gentle calm or headlong roar;
Let the vast ocean be thy home,
Thou'lt find a God upon the foam;
In rippling swell or stormy roll,
The crystal waves shall wake thy soul;
And thou shalt feel the hallowed spell
Of the wide water's Sabbath bell.

The lark upon his skyward way.
The robin on the hedge-row spray,
The bee within the wild thyme's bloom,
The owl amid the cypress gloom,
All sing in every varied tone
A vesper to the Great Unknown.
Above — below — one chorus swells
Of God's unnumbered Sabbath bells.