The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-12-05

<<T HOSE evening bellsI those even
 ing bells!
 ! How many a tale their music tells
 Of youth and home and that sweet time, When last heard their soothing chime" Being in the city of Cork, in Ireland, ] sought out the quaint old church of Shandon, and asI stood in the little cem- etery surrounding the building found myself repeating part of the poem, sThe Bells ot Shandon," now so well known throughout the English reading world The poem. written by the Rev Father Franhis Mahoney. was suggested by the bells of the old church. I give the first stnza-
 With deep affection and fond reflection, often thiix of those Shandon bells, Whose soud so wild would in days of
 childhood
 Fling 'rouid my cradle their magic spells. On them J ponder where'er wander, And thu3 grow fonder, sweet Cork, Of With thy bells of Shandon that sound so
 granj on
 The pleasant waters of the river Lee.
 The ender lines are worthy of the poet-prest who wrote them, and the sentimtnt belongs to the world. For there are feT who do not carry in fond re- membance the sweet tones of dear old bells that were heard in the days of long kgo After years of absence from the hunts of childhood, to go back to the Jld scenes over which the bells in our young years cast their magic spell andlstill ring down upon the homes of men their sweet tones, is to behold again forms and faces of those who long ago wek laid away in the quiet of Gods Ade. The bells vibrant tones awaken mtlow memories.
 through all local changes the bells re- r1hin the same. Men come and men go, Ut the bells remain and still arc rung. 5he young pass on to middle life and Nence to old age, and finally to their fuiet rest, but the bells in the far-away Husky tower ring on and on. The aged man heard them in his childhood and youth, and hears them now, though they seem further away now and fainter. But they are the same bells; the same sol- emn toll for the dead and the same merry peal for occasions of gladness. It as net strange then that the mellow music awakens memory.
 Bourrienne says that he often noticed the singular effect of the sound of bells upon the mind of Napoleon. It soothed his disquiet., I suppose he was reminded thus of church bells that rang near his childhood homo in Corsica. say. suppose this to be the case, for Abbott. in i,ts life of Napoleon" quotes him as saying: "Iast evening was walking alole in the woods amid the solitude of nature. Tho tones of a distant church hell fell upon my ears- 1nvoluntarily I fell deep emotions, so powerful is the in- fulnce of early habits and associations"
 How the bells ring from the high tow erl of Imagination and Romance through thk world of literautrel It is true of wjrks of Shakespeare, of Goethe. of schiller, of LongfelIow. of Tennyson and o1the others. one can feel the absolute sjence of universal calmness as he reads ..fhA Anrelus," by Bret Harte.
 ..kour voices break and falter in the
 darkness,
 Freak, falter and are still
 In me silence following the dying res- &ance one wants to pray.
 IYet, the bells awakened different emo ion ia the heart of Faust
 tAccursed bell! Its clamor sending
 Like spiteful shot 1t wounds my ear! Before me Hes my realm intending, vexation dogs mo in the rear. '.1or I, these snvieus chimes still hear
 ing,
 agust at ns narrow bounds repine: