Joy-Bells
Ring your sweet bells; but let them be farewellsTo the green-vista'd gladness of the pastThat changed us into soldiers; swing your bellsTo a joyful chime; but let it be the last.
What means this metal in windy belfries hungWhen guns are all our need? Dissolve these bellsWhose tones are tuned for peace: with martial tongueLet them cry doom and storm the sun with shells.
Bells are like fierce-browed prelates who proclaimThat "if our Lord returned He'd fight for us."So let our bells and bishops do the same,Shoulder to shoulder with the motor bus.
Words in this poem
- chime n.
- The harmonious sound of bells, or of musical instruments. [OE. chimbe, prop., cymbal, OF. cymbe, cymble, in a dialectic form, chymble, F. cymbale, L. cymbalum, fr. Gr. Cymbal.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Joy-Bells is in the public domain. This text is taken from Counter-Attack and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #8930; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Siegfried Sassoon, Joy-Bells, in Counter-Attack and Other Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8930, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sassoon-counter-attack/joy-bells.html, id L04720.
Form and metre
Joy-Bells is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 86% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.2 syllables. 58% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABAB farewellsA · pastB · bellsA · lastB
- 2 ABAB hungA · bellsB · tongueA · shellsB
- 3 ABAB proclaimA · usB · sameA · busB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Ring your sweet bells; but let them be farewells | 10 | ·········/ |
| To the green-vista'd gladness of the past | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| That changed us into soldiers; swing your bells | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| To a joyful chime; but let it be the last. | 11 | ··/˘······· |
| What means this metal in windy belfries hung | 11 | ···/˘·/˘/˘· |
| When guns are all our need? Dissolve these bells | 10 | ····/·˘/·· |
| Whose tones are tuned for peace: with martial tongue | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Let them cry doom and storm the sun with shells. | 10 | ·········· |
| Bells are like fierce-browed prelates who proclaim | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| That "if our Lord returned He'd fight for us." | 10 | ··/·˘/···· |
| So let our bells and bishops do the same, | 10 | ··/··/˘··· |
| Shoulder to shoulder with the motor bus. | 10 | /˘·/˘··/˘· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.