The poem
Ring your sweet bells; but let them be farewells To the green-vista'd gladness of the past That changed us into soldiers; swing your bells To a joyful chime; but let it be the last.
What means this metal in windy belfries hung When guns are all our need? Dissolve these bells Whose tones are tuned for peace: with martial tongue Let them cry doom and storm the sun with shells.
Bells are like fierce-browed prelates who proclaim That 'if our Lord returned He'd fight for us.' So let our bells and bishops do the same, Shoulder to shoulder with the motor-bus.