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