Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

Descriptive Poems: II. Nature and Art

The Bells of Shandon

Francis Sylvester Mahony (Father Prout) (1804–1866)

WITH deep affection

And recollection

I often think on

Those Shandon bells,

Whose sounds so wild would,

In the 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.

I ’ve heard bells chiming

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.

I ’ve heard bells tolling

“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.

There ’s a bell in Moscow;

While on tower and kiosko

In Saint Sophia

The Turkman gets,

And loud in air

Calls men to prayer,

From the tapering summit

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.