Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Ireland: Vol. V. 1876–79.
The Bells of Shandon
By Francis Sylvester Mahony (Father Prout) (1804–1866)W
And recollection,
I often think of
The Shandon bells,
Whose sounds so wild would
In days of childhood
Fling round my cradle
Their magic spells.
On this I ponder,
Where’er I wander,
And thus grow fonder,
Sweet Cork, of thee;
With thy bells of Shandon,
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee.
Full many a clime in,
Tolling sublime in,
Cathedral shrine,
While at a glib rate
Brass tongues would vibrate;
But all their music
Spoke naught like thine;
For memory, dwelling
On each proud swelling
Of thy belfry, knelling
Its bold notes free,
Made the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee.
Old Adrian’s Mole in,
Their thunder rolling
From the Vatican;
And cymbals glorious
Swinging uproarious
In the gorgeous turrets
Of Notre Dame:
But thy sounds were sweeter
Than the dome of Peter
Flings o’er the Tiber,
Pealing solemnly.
O, the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee!
While on tower and kiosk O
In St. Sophia
The Turkman gets,
And loud in air
Calls men to prayer,
From the tapering summits
Of tall minarets.
Such empty phantom
I freely grant them;
But there ’s an anthem
More dear to me,—
’T is the bells of Shandon,
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee.