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Longfellow may well be called the Poet of the Bells; for who has so largely voiced their many uses as he, or interpreted the part they have taken in the world's history. That he was a great lover of bells and bell music is evinced by the many times he chose them as themes for his poems; nearly a dozen of which are about them, containing some of the sweetest of his thoughts; and allusions to them, like this from Evangeline,—

are sprinkled all through his longer poems, as well as his prose. The Song of the Bell, beginning,—

was among his earliest writings; and The Bells of San Blas was his last poem, having been written March 15, 1882, nine days only before he died:—

And this last stanza must contain the last words that came from his pen:—

One of his latest sonnets is entitled Chimes.

This was sung of the beautiful clock that

in his mansion at Cambridge, by so many thought to be the one referred to in The Old Clock on the Stairs. But no; that one was in the "Gold House" at Pittsfield, and is now in disuse; while this one is a fine piece of mechanism, striking the coming hour on each half hour, and on the hour itself sweet carillons are played for several moments, so familiar to the poet that it is no wonder that to hear it he says,—

And who has not been entranced by the melody of his

In the prologue to The Golden Legend, we have the attempt of Lucifer and the Powers of the Air to tear down the cross from the spire of the Strasburg Cathedral, with the remonstrance of the bells interwoven:

"I praise the true God, call the people, convene the clergy; I mourn the dead, dispel the pestilence, and grace festivals;