C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
The Shandon Bells
By Francis Sylvester Mahony (Father Prout) (1804–1866)
W
And recollection
I often think on
Those Shandon bells,
Whose sounds so wild would
In the days of childhood,
Fling round my cradle
Their magic spells.
On this I ponder
Where’er I wander,
And thus grow fonder,
Sweet Cork, of thee;
With thy bells of Shandon,
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee.
Full many a clime in,
Tolling sublime in
Cathedral shrine,
While at a glib rate
Brass tongues would vibrate—
But all their music
Spoke naught like thine;
For memory dwelling
On each proud swelling
Of the belfry knelling
Its bold notes free,
Made the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee.
Old “Adrian’s Mole” in,
Their thunder rolling
From the Vatican,
And cymbals glorious
Swinging uproarious
In the gorgeous turrets
Of Nôtre Dame;
But thy sounds are sweeter
Than the dome of Peter
Flings o’er the Tiber,
Pealing solemnly:
Oh! the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee.
While on tower and kiosk, O!
In Saint Sophia
The Turkman gets,
And loud in air
Calls men to prayer
From the tapering summit
Of tall minarets.
Such empty phantom
I freely grant them;
But there is an anthem
More dear to me,—
’Tis the bells of Shandon,
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee.