The Carillon

I love them—and I hearken
   As the winds their notes prolong,
Like the murmur of a fountain,
   Like a lambkin’s distant song,

Like the birds serenely winging
   On their way across the skies,
At the break of daylight soaring
   To salute it with their cries.

In their voices saying ever
   O’er the plain and mountain peak
Something that is frank and candid
   That a soothing charm would speak.

Should their voices cease forever,
   What a sorrow for the air!
What a silence in the belfries!
   And the dead—how strangely bare!