quotations about bells
And now the chapel's silver bell you hear,
That summons you to all the pride of prayer.
Light quirks of music, broken, and uneven,
Make the soul dance upon a jig to Heav'n.
ALEXANDER POPE
Moral Essays
When you hear the bell, you feel a tug at your heart.
VERA NAZARIAN
The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
And the Sabbath bell,
That over wood and wild and mountain dell
Wanders so far, chasing all thoughts unholy
With sounds most musical, most melancholy.
SAMUEL ROGERS
Human Life
A cracked bell can never sound well.
THOMAS FULLER
Gnomologia
How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet, now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again, and louder still,
Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on!
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where Mem'ry slept.
WILLIAM COWPER
The Task
How sweet the sounds of village bells
When on the undulating air they swim!
Now loud as welcomes! faint, now, as farewells!
And trembling all about the breezy dells
As flutter'd by the wings of Cherubim.
THOMAS HOOD
Ode to Rae Wilson
The bell never rings of itself; unless someone swings it, it is dumb.
PLAUTUS
Trinummus
If you love not the noise of bells, why do you pull the ropes?
THOMAS FULLER
Gnomologia
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day.
THOMAS GRAY
Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard
The sand in our hourglass and the tolling of our bells are like rain drops in the ocean of eternity.
LARRY WARKENTIN
Bloodline
A girl with cotton in her ears
Is shielded from the bells' effect
As if by hidden signal
The people turn to face her
One thousand eyes are staring
They pull away her earplugs
THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS
"The Bells Are Ringing"
But the sound of the church-going bell
These valleys and rocks never heard;
Ne'er sigh'd at the sound of a knell,
Or smil'd when a Sabbath appear'd.
WILLIAM COWPER
Alexander Selkirk
They tune like bells, and want but hanging.
THOMAS ADAMS
Works
The cheerful Sabbath bells, wherever heard,
Strike pleasant on the sense, most like the voice
Of one, who from the far-off hills proclaims
Tidings of good to Zion.
CHARLES LAMB
The Sabbath Bells
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Hamlet
Bells call others, but themselves enter not into the Church.
GEORGE HERBERT
Jacula Prudentum
So vices brag, but virtue bears the bell.
GEORGE GASCOIGNE
Glasse of Government
The bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Macbeth
Ring them bells yea heathen
From the city that dreams
Ring them bells from the sanctuaries
Cross the valleys and streams
For they're deep and they're wide
And the world's on it's side
And time is running backwards and so is the bride
Ring them bells
HEART
"Ring Them Bells"
Ring them bells Saint Peter
Where the four winds blow
Ring them bells with an iron hand so the people will know
That the rush hour is now on the wheel
And the plow and the sun is going down
Upon the sacred cow
Ring them bells
HEART
"Ring Them Bells"