quotations about bells
He discovered another bell, huge as well, but not plain and bare. Its metal sides were covered in scenes, bas-reliefs spreading their greenish lace over the bronze dress. Its casting mould must have been as complicated as the plate for an etching. From a distance Borluut could make out figures, hazy scenes, but the bell was too high above to make out precisely what they represented. Seized with curiosity, he found a pair of stepladders and climbed up until he was close to them. The bronze was a wild orgy, a drunken, obscene carnival; naked satyrs and women were swirling round the bell, its curve giving movement to their saraband.
GEORGES RODENBACH
The Bells of Bruges
And ring the bells, ring the bells of change
Ring the bells every boy and every girl
Ring the bells, ring the bells of peace
All over the world
MELISSA ETHERIDGE
"Ring the Bells"
And all went merry as a marriage bell.
LORD BYRON
Childe Harold
The bells are ringing
The song they're singing
The sound is bringing the people 'round
They hear the instructions
They follow directions
They travel great distances to the sound
THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS
"The Bells Are Ringing"
Bell! thou soundest merrily,
When the bridal party
To the church doth hie!
Bell! thou soundest solemnly,
When, on Sabbath morning,
Fields deserted lie.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Hyperion
He was a rationalist, but he had to confess that he liked the ringing of church bells.
ANTON CHEKHOV
Notebook
Those evening bells! those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells!
Of youth, and home, and that sweet time
When last I heard their soothing chime.
THOMAS MOORE
Those Evening Bells
Hark, how chimes the passing bell!
There's no music to a knell.
JAMES SHIRLEY
The Passing Bell
Hear the mellow wedding bells, Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
The Bells
The bells themselves are the best of preachers,
Their brazen lips are learned teachers,
From their pulpits of stone, in the upper air,
Sounding aloft, without crack or flaw,
Shriller than trumpets under the Law.
Now a sermon and now a prayer.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
The Golden Legend
Each matin bell, the Baron saith,
Knells us back to a world of death.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
Christabel
Hear the sledges with the bells
Silver bells
What a world of merriment
Their melody foretells
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle
In the icy air of night
All the heavens seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight
PHIL OCHS
"The Bells"
How sweet on the breeze of the evening swells
The vesper call of those soothing bells,
Borne softly and dying in echoes away,
Like a requiem sung to the parting day.
LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON
"Bells", The London Literary Gazette, September 22, 1821
Bid the merry bells ring to thine ear.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
II Henry IV
Bells, the music bordering nearest heaven.
CHARLES LAMB
Essays of Elia
Send not to know
For whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
JOHN DONNE
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions
And let see which of you shall bear the bell
To speak of love a-right!
GEOFFREY CHAUCHER
Troilus and Criseyde
Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh
JAMES PIERPONT
"Jingle Bells"
Church bells are like Chanel suits: a timeless classic. So ancient are they as to act as a kind of gentle caress from history, easing you back to simpler times. Within a few peals you can be a medieval monk kneeling at the altar, or an Edwardian Oxbridge undergraduate striding through a courtyard.
PATRICK STRUDWICK
The Guardian, June 14, 2004
Keeping time, time, time
In a sort of Runic rhyme
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
The Bells