[1701] The Bells of Heaven

'Twould ring the bells of heaven,
The wildest peal for years,
If Parson lost his senses
And people came to theirs.
And he and they together
Knelt down with angry prayers
For tamed and shabby tigers,
And dancing dogs and bears,
And wretched, blind pit ponies,
And little hunted hares.

   -- Ralph Hodgson

This is a poem that lives vividly in mind, memory and heart. The skill is
great but concealed. Imagery of the opening lines carries us deep into the
poem before what we know what it is about. If the reader gets as far as
'angry prayers,' there is no way out and the reader must go on to the end.
The last four lines are carefully built with a choice of the feral and the
domestic victims of man's inhumanity. The sound is brittle and matches the
idea of these victim's vulnerability. The controlled wrath of the poet is
awesome.  His lines crackle.

Bob Williams

[Links]

Biography:
  http://www.brynmawr.edu/library/mirabile/mirabile2/hodgson.html

We've run one of Hodgson's poems before: The Gipsy Girl [Poem #517], which
displays the same finely-controlled wrath.

[this poem is archived, accessible and awaiting your comments at]
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1701.html
To subscribe, send a blank mail to <minstrels-subscribe@>.


Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/minstrels/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    minstrels-unsubscribe@

    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

From: Biltoncotts@

Best poem ever. Still makes me cry.