Saturday, August 28, 2010

"And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom, flashing"



Far between the finished sundown 
an' midnight's broken toll


We ducked inside the doorway, as
thunder went crashing


As majestic bells of bolts
struck shadows in the sounds


Seeming to be the chimes of freedom
flashing




  Flashing for the warriors
  whose strength is not to fight
  
  Flashing for the refugees
  on the unarmed road of flight


  And for each and every underdog
  soldier in the night


  And we gazed upon the chimes
  of freedom flashing








Through the city's melting furnace,
unexpectedly we watched


With faces hidden as the walls
were tightening




As the echo of the wedding bells
before the blowin' rain


Dissolved into the bells of the lightning


Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake
Tolling for the luckless, abandoned and forsake'


Tolling for the outcast burnin' constantly at stake


And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing


Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail 
The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder 
That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the night 
Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder




Striking for the gentle,
striking for the kind
Striking for the guardians and
protectors of the mind
And the poet and the painter
who lights up his rightful time


And we gazed upon the chimes
of freedom flashing


In the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales
For the disrobed faceless forms of no position
Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts
All down in taken for granted situations






Tolling for the searching ones
on their speechless seeking trail


For the lonesome hearted lovers
with too personal a tale


And for each unharmful, gentle soul
misplaced inside a jail


And we gazed upon the chimes
of freedom flashing






Starry-eyed and laughing,
as I recall when we were caught

Trapped by no track of hours
for they hang suspended

As we listened one last time
and we watched with one last look

Spellbound and swallowed
till the tolling ended . . 

And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom
flashing

Lyric, Bob Dylan and many good carilloneurs

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