Classic Poem

Toll , toll, toll,
Thou bell by billows swung,
And night and day thy warning words
Repeat with mournful tongue!
Toll for the queenly boat,
Wreck'd on yon rocky shore;
Sea-weed is in her palace-halls,
She rides the surge no more!

Toll for the master bold,
The high-soul'd and the brave,
Who ruled her like a thing of life
Amid the crested wave!
Toll for the hardy crew,
Sons of the storm and blast,
Who long the tyrant Ocean dared,
But it vanquish'd them at last!

Toll for the man of God,
Whose hallow'd voice of prayer
Rose calm above the stifled groan
Of that intense despair!
How precious were those tones
On that sad verge of life,
Amid the fierce and freezing storm,
And the mountain-billows' strife!

Toll for the lover lost
To the summon'd bridal train!
Bright glows a picture on his breast,
Beneath the unfathom'd main.
One from her casement gazeth
Long o'er the misty sea;
He cometh not, pale maiden,
His heart is cold to thee!

Toll for the absent sire,
Who to his home drew near,
To bless a glad expecting group,
Fond wife, and children dear!
They heap the blazing hearth,
The festal board is spread,
But a fearful guest is at the gate:
Room for the sheeted dead!

Toll for the loved and fair,
The whelm'd beneath the tide,
The broken harps around whose strings
The dull sea-monsters glide!
Mother and nursling sweet,
Reft from the household throng;
There's bitter weeping in the nest
Where breath'd their soul of song.

Toll for the hearts that bleed
'Neath misery's furrowing trace!
Toll for the hapless orphan left
The last of all his race!
Yea, with thy heaviest knell
From surge to rocky shore,
Toll for the living, not the dead,
Whose mortal woes are o'er!

Toll, toll, toll,
O'er breeze and billow free,
And with thy startling lore instruct
Each rover of the sea;
Tell how o'er proudest joys
May swift destruction sweep,
And bid him build his hopes on high,
Lone Teacher of the deep!