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To The Chapel Bell.

"Lo I, the man who erst the Muse did ask

Her deepest notes to swell the Patriot's meeds,

Am now enforst a far unfitter task

For cap and gown to leave my minstrel weeds,"

For yon dull noise that tinkles on the air

Bids me lay by the lyre and go to morning prayer.

Oh how I hate the sound! it is the Knell,

That still a requiem tolls to Comfort's hour;

And loth am I, at Superstition's bell,

To quit or Morpheus or the Muses bower.

Better to lie and dose, than gape amain,

Hearing still mumbled o'er, the same eternal strain.

Thou tedious herald of more tedious prayers

Say hast thou ever summoned from his rest,

One being awakening to religious awe?

Or rous'd one pious transport in the breast?

Or rather, do not all reluctant creep

To linger out the hour, in listlessness or sleep?

I love the bell, that calls the poor to pray

Chiming from village church its chearful sound,

When the sun smiles on Labour's holy day,

And all the rustic train are gathered round,

Each deftly dizen'd in his Sunday's best

And pleas'd to hail the day of piety and rest.

Or when, dim-shadowing o'er the face of day,

The mantling mists of even-tide rise slow,

As thro' the forest gloom I wend my way,

The minster curfew's sullen roar I know;

I pause and love its solemn toll to hear,

As made by distance soft, it dies upon the ear.

Nor not to me the unfrequent midnight knell

Tolls sternly harmonizing; on mine ear

As the deep death-fraught sounds long lingering dwell

Sick to the heart of Love and Hope and Fear

Soul-jaundiced, I do loathe Life's upland steep

And with strange envy muse the dead man's dreamless sleep.

But thou, memorial of monastic gall!

What Fancy sad or lightsome hast thou given?

Thy vision-scaring sounds alone recall

The prayer that trembles on a yawn to heaven;

And this Dean's gape, and that Dean's nosal tone,

And Roman rites retain'd, tho' Roman faith be flown.