The Bells of St Peter Mancroft
I would visit the town center Sunday eveningsAnd dream of the worlds in the church’s bellsAs they rang so high they must have been heardBy the angels who blessed them centuries agoAs well as those now on their way to evensong.
Sitting on the square where tomorrow’s marketWould host hundreds of shoppers bags in armsI listened once more to the sabbath silence As loud as the earthquake that rent the veilWhen the temple fell on the wooden cross.
But then St. Peter Mancroft begins to pealAnd, though I no longer believe in myths,I listen to joy I feel to this day, The joy of men aspiring to beautyThey can never possess but only serve.
“Change-ringing” it’s called: tuned bells in sequenceRing out from their changes thousands in numberSounds of order that measure the universeIn music at once forgotten and familiarAs from a time before time marks today.
I was so young and full of emptinessLonging for I know not what and afraidOf what I might do if I found it—The terror of freedom: you have to choose.But who would be a slave? Wrong choice be damned.
So are the bells the angels of freedom:εὐαγγέλιον! Hear the good news they ring!Men and women live in bodies that have to die,But their bodies still build the beautifulFrom the same starfire they evolve from themselves.
Listen to the bells as I in youth once did.Have mercy on all who live in fear and darkness,Which is everyone listening to the bellsWho hopes his heart is free of fear and darknessWhen his changes ring for the final time.
I would visit the town center Sunday eveningsAnd dream of the worlds in the church’s bellsAs they rang so high they must have been heardBy the angels who blessed them centuries agoAs well as those now on their way to evensong.
Sitting on the square where tomorrow’s marketWould host hundreds of shoppers bags in armsI listened once more to the sabbath silence As loud as the earthquake that rent the veilWhen the temple fell on the wooden cross.
But then St. Peter Mancroft begins to pealAnd, though I no longer believe in myths,I listen to joy I feel to this day, The joy of men aspiring to beautyThey can never possess but only serve.
“Change-ringing” it’s called: tuned bells in sequenceRing out from their changes thousands in numberSounds of order that measure the universeIn music at once forgotten and familiarAs from a time before time marks today.
I was so young and full of emptinessLonging for I know not what and afraidOf what I might do if I found it—The terror of freedom: you have to choose.But who would be a slave? Wrong choice be damned.
So are the bells the angels of freedom:εὐαγγέλιον! Hear the good news they ring!Men and women live in bodies that have to die,But their bodies still build the beautifulFrom the same starfire they evolve from themselves.
Listen to the bells as I in youth once did.Have mercy on all who live in fear and darkness,Which is everyone listening to the bellsWho hopes his heart is free of fear and darknessWhen his changes ring for the final time.
