Sunday Morning Bells

Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826–1887)

FROM the near city comes the clang of bells:

Their hundred jarring diverse tones combine

In one faint misty harmony, as fine

As the soft note yon winter robin swells.

What if to Thee in thine infinity

These multiform and many-colored creeds

Seem but the robe man wraps as masquers’ weeds

Round the one living truth them givest him—Thee?

What if these varied forms that worship prove,

Being heart-worship, reach thy perfect ear

But as a monotone, complete and clear,

Of which the music is, through Christ’s name, love?

Forever rising in sublime increase

To “Glory in the highest,—on earth peace”?