Poetry Archives

Ring your sweet bells; but let them be farewells
  To the green-vista’d gladness of the past
That changed us into soldiers; swing your bells
  To a joyful chime; but let it be the last.

What means this metal in windy belfries hung
  When guns are all our need? Dissolve these bells
Whose tones are tuned for peace: with martial tongue
  Let them cry doom and storm the sun with shells.

Bells are like fierce-browed prelates who proclaim
  That “if our Lord returned He’d fight for us.”
So let our bells and bishops do the same,
  Shoulder to shoulder with the motor bus.