The five old bells <br />Are hurrying and eagerly calling, <br />Imploring, protesting <br />They know, but clamorously falling <br />Into gabbling incoherence, never resting, <br />Like spattering showers from a bursten sky-rocket dropping <br />In splashes of sound, endlessly, never stopping. <br /> <br />The silver moon <br />That somebody has spun so high <br />To settle the question, yes or no, has caught <br />In the net of the night’s balloon, <br />And sits with a smooth bland smile up there in the sky <br />Smiling at naught, <br />Unless the winking star that keeps her company <br />Makes little jests at the bells’ insanity, <br />As if he knew aught! <br /> <br />The patient Night <br />Sits indifferent, hugged in her rags, <br />She neither knows nor cares <br />Why the old church sobs and brags; <br />The light distresses her eyes, and tears <br />Her old blue cloak, as she crouches and covers her face, <br />Smiling, perhaps, if we knew it, at the bells’ loud clattering disgrace. <br /> <br />The wise old trees <br />Drop their leaves with a faint, sharp hiss of contempt, <br />While a car at the end of the street goes by with a laugh; <br />As by degrees <br />The poor bells cease, and the Night is exempt, <br />And the stars can chaff <br />The ironic moon at their ease, while the dim old church <br />Is peopled with shadows and sounds and ghosts that lurch <br />In its cenotaph.<br /><br />David Herbert Lawrence<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/week-night-service-2/
