You who have known my city for a day
    And heard the music of her steepled bells,
    Then laughed, and passed along your vagrant way,
    Carrying only what the city tells
    To those who listen solely with their ears;
    You know St. Matthew’s swinging harmonies,
    And old St. Michael’s tale of golden years
    Far less like bells than chanted memories.

    Yet there is something wanting in the song
    Of lyric youth with voice unschooled by pain. 
    And there are breathing stillnesses that throng
    Dim corners, and that only stir again
    When bells are dumb.  Not even bronze that beats
    Our heart-throbs back can tell of old defeats.

    But you who take the city for your own,
    Come with me when the night flows deep and kind
    Along these narrow ways of troubled stone,
    And floods the wide savannas of the mind
    With tides that cool the fever of the day: 
    One with the dark, companioned by the stars,
    We’ll seek St. Philip’s, nebulous and gray,
    Holding its throbbing beacon to the bars,
    A prisoned spirit vibrant in the stone
    That knew its empire of forgotten things. 
    Then will the city know you for her own,
    And feel you meet to share her sufferings;
    While down a swirl of poignant memories,
    Herself shall find you in her silences.

    Once coaches waited row on shining row
    Before this door; and where the thirsty street
    Drank the deep shadow of the portico
    The Sunday hush was stirred by happy feet,
    Low greetings, and the rustle of brocade,
    The organ throb, and warmth of sunny eyes
    That flashed and smiled beneath a bonnet shade;
    Life with the lure of all its swift disguise.

    Then from the soaring lyric of the spire,
    Like the composite voice of all the town,
    The bells burst swiftly into singing fire
    That wrapped the building, and which showered down
    Bright cadences to flash along the ways
    Loud with the splendid gladness of the days.

    War took the city, and the laughter died
    From lips that pain had kissed.  One after one
    All lovely things went down the sanguine tide,
    While death made moaning answer to the gun. 
    Then, as a golden voice dies in the throat
    Of one who lives, but whose glad heart is dead,
    The bells were taken; and a sterner note
    Rang from their bronze where Lee and Jackson led.

    The rhythmic seasons chill and burn and chill,
    Cooling old angers, warming hearts again. 
    The ancient building quickens to the thrill
    Of lilting feet; but only singing rain
    Flutters old echoes in the portico;
    Those who can still remember love it so.

D.H.

[1] See the note on the chimes at back of book.