The Old Town Bells
The old town bells are ringing
In the hand that hallows day,
And I am standing on a step
Above the little cay
That slips beneath the fishing pier
And drops into the deep,
To which my mind
Has wandered
In its loves so long asleep
They ring from out a tower
In a park some blocks away,
And in their staid recital,
I am pleased to hear them play
I sense in them an unshed tear
That they were meant to wake,
And in a swell of sentiment,
My heart begins to break
They seem as if
A thing I dreamed
That moved me long ago
Whose purpose then
I could not guess
And value did not know
They bid me down
A path too fair,
A way too dear to dare,
For I am old and cannot risk
The beauty that is there
Yet I will share
A thought with you
That I fear to advance -
It is that though
We have but love,
We live love’s full expanse
We are the portrait and the poem,
The song that brings a tear –
The essence of a miracle,
That gives us meaning here
We are God’s fragile masterpiece,
His imagery, and art, the faithful hand
That sculpts His form in every tender heart
We are the waking of the mind,
The writing of the tome –
The looking back upon the bay,
As we are going home
Nostalgia is more than a sigh
That we gather the past:
It is the pith of our dear soul
And all it has amassed
Through each decision,
Joy, and pain
That we in wonder hear
Upon the sounding of the bells,
When God to us is near
I pass the tower on my way,
And silently it stands,
And I am mulling
How its clock is round
With moving hands
I hear the bells within myself,
I hear the bells that chime
Within my writing of these lines,
Your reading of the rhyme.
About this poem
Having Wandered the Waterfront Of a Small Southern Town, I Came to Believe That We Are the Poetry, Elicited by the Ringing of Town Bells (Southport, NC, May 6, 2015)
Font size:
Submitted by EugeneOsowski on January 14, 2022
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:02 min read
- 8 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABXB CDEX D XB FB GHXHXX I XX I XG G XG GXJ IXJ XGF K XXX EL BL XM XM XX KXC BNA XN XO XO |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,690 |
Words | 409 |
Stanzas | 27 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 1, 2, 2, 6, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 1, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2 |
Translation
Find a translation for this poem in other languages:
Select another language:
- - Select -
- 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
- 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
- Español (Spanish)
- Esperanto (Esperanto)
- 日本語 (Japanese)
- Português (Portuguese)
- Deutsch (German)
- العربية (Arabic)
- Français (French)
- Русский (Russian)
- ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
- 한국어 (Korean)
- עברית (Hebrew)
- Gaeilge (Irish)
- Українська (Ukrainian)
- اردو (Urdu)
- Magyar (Hungarian)
- मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
- Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Italiano (Italian)
- தமிழ் (Tamil)
- Türkçe (Turkish)
- తెలుగు (Telugu)
- ภาษาไทย (Thai)
- Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
- Čeština (Czech)
- Polski (Polish)
- Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Românește (Romanian)
- Nederlands (Dutch)
- Ελληνικά (Greek)
- Latinum (Latin)
- Svenska (Swedish)
- Dansk (Danish)
- Suomi (Finnish)
- فارسی (Persian)
- ייִדיש (Yiddish)
- հայերեն (Armenian)
- Norsk (Norwegian)
- English (English)
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"The Old Town Bells" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 12 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/117700/the-old-town-bells>.
Discuss the poem The Old Town Bells with the community...
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In