Explore "A Peal of Bells" by Christina Georgina Rossetti on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Strike the bells wantonly, / Tinkle tinkle well; / Bring me wine, bring me flowers, / Ring the silver bell. / All my lamps burn scented oil, / Hung on laden orange-trees, / Whose shadowed foliage is the foil / To golden lamps and oranges. / Heap my golden plates with fruit, / Golden fruit, fresh-plucked and ripe; / Strike the bells and breathe the pipe; / Shut out showers from summer hours; / Silence that complaining lute; / Shut out thinking, shut out pain, / From hours that cannot come again.
Strike the bells solemnly, / Ding dong deep: / My friend is passing to his bed, / Fast asleep; / There's plaited linen round his head, / While foremost go his feet, -- / His feet that cannot carry him. / My feast's a show, my lights are dim; / Be still, your music is not sweet, -- / There is no music more for him: / His lights are out, his feast is done; / His bowl that sparkled to the brim / Is drained, is broken, cannot hold; / My blood is chill, his blood is cold; / His death is full, and mine begun.