“Dong, sounds the brass in the east...”
by Henry D. Thoreau

Dong, sounds the brass in the east,
As if to a funeral feast,
But I like that sound the best
Out of the fluttering west.

The steeple ringeth a knell,
But the fairies’ silvery bell
Is the voice of that gentle folk,
Or else the horizon that spoke.

Its metal is not of brass,
But air, and water, and glass,
And under a cloud it is swung,
And by the wind it is rung.

When the steeple tolleth the noon,
It soundeth not so soon,
Yet it rings a far earlier hour,
And the sun has not reached its tower. 

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A Note on the Text:

• Source: Collected Poems of Henry Thoreau edited by Carl Bode (Chicago Packard and Co., 1943) p. 40.

• Title from first line

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