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Show THE LEGEND OF LIMEEICX BELLS. (Bessie Kayner Parkes.) There is a convent on the Alban hill. Round whose stone roots the gnarled olives grow; Above the murmurs of the mountain rill, Ai.d all the broad Campagna lies below; Where faint gray buildings and a shadowy dome Suggests the splendor of eternal Rome. Hundreds of years ago, these convent walls Wero reared by masons of the Gothic age; The date is carved upon the lofty halls, The story written on the illumined page. What pains they took to make it strong and fair The tall bell tower and sculptured porch declare. When all the stones were placed, the windows stained, And the bell tower finished to the crown Only one want in this fair pile remained, Whereat a cunning workman of the town (The little town upon the Alban hill) Toiled day and night his purpose to fulfill. Seven bells he made, of very rare devise, With graven lilies twisted up and down: Seven bells proportionate in differing size, And full of melody from rim to crown; So that, when shaken by the wind alone. They murmured with a soft Aeolian tone. These being placed within the great bell tower. And duly rung by pious, skillful hand. Marked the due prayers of each recurring recur-ring hour, And sweetly mixed persuasion with command. Through the gnarled olive trees the music wound. And miles of broad Campagna heard the sound. And then the cunning workman put aside His forjre, his hammer, and- the tools ho used To chase those lilies; his keen furnace died; And all who asked for bells were hence refused. With these his boat, his last were also wrought, And ret use in the convent walls he sought. There did he live, and there he hoped to die, Hear-nrr the wind among the cypress trees - 1 Which, dashing round the Cape of Brittany,. Brit-tany,. Sweeps to the confines og the Irish Sea. There ho took shia, and thence with laboring sail He crossed the waters, till a faint gray lino Rose in the northern sky; so faint, so pale Only the heart that loves her would divine, In her dim welcome, all that-fancy paints Of the green glory of the Isle of Saints. Through the low banks, where Shannon meets the sea, I'p the broad waters of the River King (Then populous with a nation), journeyed he, Through that old Ireland which her pets sing; And the white vessel, breasting up the stream, Moved slowly, like a ship within a dream. When Limerick towers uprose before his c;aze, A sound of music ?ioated in the air-Music air-Music which held him In a xed amaze. Whose silver tenderness was alien thero; Notes full of murmurs of the southern seas, And dusky olives swaying in the breeze. His chimes! the children of the great bell tower. Empty and silent now for many a year. He hears them ringing out the vesper hour, Owned in an instant by his loving ear. Kind angels stayed the spoiler's hasty hand, And watched their journeying over sea and land. The white-sailed boat moved slowly up the stream; The oh man lay with folded hands at rest; The Shannon glistened in the sunset beam; The bells rang gently o'er its shining breast, Shaking out music from each lilied rim; It was a requiem which they rang for For when the boat was moored beside the quay, He lay as children lie when lulled by song; But never more to waken. Tenderly They buried him wild powers and grass among, Where on the cross alights the wandering wander-ing bird. And hour by hour the bells he loved are hear. |