Page:General William Booth enters into Heaven, and other poems.djvu/95

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Nicholas Vachel Lindsay
79

A thousand bells from a thousand boughs
Each moment bloomed and fell.
On the hill of the wind-swept tree
There were no bells asleep;
They sang beneath my trailing wings
Like rivers sweet and steep.
Deep rock-clefts before my feet
Mighty chimes did keep
And little choirs did keep.

He Receives the Bells

Honeyed, small and fair,
Like flowers, in flowery lands—
Like little maidens' hands—
Two bells fell in my hair,
Two bells caressed my hair.
I pressed them to my purple lips
In the strangling Chaos-air.

He Starts on the Return Journey

On desperate wings and strong,
Two bells within my breast,
I breathed again, I breathed again—
West of the Universe—