Toll the Bell by George K Camp Lyrics

Toll the bell, the iron-throated
Bell despairful!
Let its tidings be outfloated,
Sad and prayerful,
From each spire and dome and steeple,
As a warning to the people,
As a voice from heaven sped ;
As a note of tender pity
From silence of the city
Of the dead !

Toll ! And may its melancholy,
Deep and solemn,
Crush the heart's incessant folly
As a column !
May its clamor, far outreaching,
More than dreary wastes of preaching,

Peal at Pleasure's shrine,
Ever calling, and enthralling,
With an eloqurnce appalling,
Terrible, divine !
Yesterday the clay was glowing,
Now 'tis ashes!
And the cup of Fate, o'erflowing,
Grimly dashes
On the vital spark its wave-
Gloomy wave which ever lashes,
And in sullen silence plashes
On its shore, the grave !

Ah! to live oft to languish
And repine,
Since around our dreamings anguish
Must entwine ;
And the pale thing, named Hereafter,
From the dimpled lip of Laughter
Sweeps the summer bloom ;
While before his cold eye, Pleasure,
Casting down love's beaded measure,
Totters to the tomb.

Toll, O sexton! Let thy muffled
Dirge begin,
For another soul hath shuffled
Off its sin.
Toll, O sexton, warprf snd bended,
From the dead old years descended,
Toll thy monody!
For the next wild note that clashes
Over mute, dismantled ashes
May be rung for thee !