Thomas Hardy

Inscriptions for a Peal of Eight Bells

     After a Restoration

I.    Thomas Tremble new-made me
      Eighteen hundred and fifty-three:
      Why he did I fail to see.

II.   I was well-toned by William Brine,
      Seventeen hundred and twenty-nine;
      Now, re-cast, I weakly whine!

III.  Fifteen hundred used to be
      My date, but since they melted me
      ’Tis only eighteen fifty-three.

IV.   Henry Hopkins got me made,
      And I summon folk as bade;
      Not to much purpose, I’m afraid!

V.    I likewise; for I bang and bid
      In commoner metal than I did,
      Some of me being stolen and hid.

VI.   I, too, since in a mould they flung me,
      Drained my silver, and rehung me,
      So that in tin-like tones I tongue me.

VII.  In nineteen hundred, so ’tis said,
      They cut my canon off my head,
      And made me look scalped, scraped, and dead.

VIII. I’m the peal’s tenor still, but rue it!
      Once it took two to swing me through it:
      Now I’m rehung, one dolt can do it.