Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Francis Mahony. 18051866677. The Bells of Shandon
WITH deep affection, | |
And recollection, | |
I often think of | |
Those Shandon bells, | |
Whose sounds so wild would, | 5 |
In the days of childhood, | |
Fling around my cradle | |
Their magic spells. | |
On this I ponder | |
Where’er I wander, | 10 |
And thus grow fonder, | |
Sweet Cork, of thee; | |
With thy bells of Shandon, | |
That sound so grand on | |
The pleasant waters | 15 |
Of the River Lee. | |
I’ve heard bells chiming | |
Full many a clime in, | |
Tolling sublime in | |
Cathedral shrine, | 20 |
While at a glib rate | |
Brass tongues would vibrate— | |
But all their music | |
Spoke naught like thine; | |
For memory, dwelling | 25 |
On each proud swelling | |
Of the belfry knelling | |
Its bold notes free, | |
Made the bells of Shandon | |
Sound far more grand on | 30 |
The pleasant waters | |
Of the River Lee. | |
I’ve heard bells tolling | |
Old Adrian’s Mole in, | |
Their thunder rolling | 35 |
From the Vatican, | |
And cymbals glorious | |
Swinging uproarious | |
In the gorgeous turrets | |
Of Notre Dame; | 40 |
But thy sounds were sweeter | |
Than the dome of Peter | |
Flings o’er the Tiber, | |
Pealing solemnly— | |
O, the bells of Shandon | 45 |
Sound far more grand on | |
The pleasant waters | |
Of the River Lee. | |
There ‘s a bell in Moscow, | |
While on tower and kiosk O! | 50 |
In Saint Sophia | |
The Turkman gets, | |
And loud in air | |
Calls men to prayer | |
From the tapering summits | 55 |
Of tall minarets. | |
Such empty phantom | |
I freely grant them; | |
But there ‘s an anthem | |
More dear to me,— | 60 |
‘Tis the bells of Shandon, | |
That sound so grand on | |
The pleasant waters | |
Of the River Lee. |