he bishop;
and when I, the Bell, who am made of metal, rang hard and loud, and
swung to and fro, I might have beaten out his brains. He sat down
close under me, and played with two little sticks as if they had
been a stringed instrument; and he sang to it. 'Now I may sing it
out aloud, though at other times I may not whisper it. I may sing of
everything that is kept concealed behind lock and bars. Yonder it is
cold and wet. The rats are eating her up alive! Nobody knows of it!
Nobody hears of it! Not even now, for the bell is ringing and
singing its loud Ding-dong, ding-dong!'

"There was a King in those days. They called him Canute. He
bowed himself before bishop and monk; but when he offended the free
peasants with heavy taxes and hard words, they seized their weapons
and put him to flight like a wild beast. He sought shelter in the
church, and shut gate and door behind him. The violent band surrounded
the church; I heard tell of it. The crows, ravens and magpies
started up in terror at the yelling and shouting that sounded
around. They flew into the tower and out again, they looked down
upon the throng below, and they also looked into the windows of the
church, and screamed out aloud what they saw there. King Canute
knelt before the altar in prayer; his brothers Eric and Benedict stood
by him as a guard with drawn swords; but the King's servant, the
treacherous Blake, betrayed his master. The throng in front of the
church knew where they could hit the King, and one of them flung a
stone through a pane of glass, and the King lay there dead! The
cries and screams of the savage horde and of the birds sounded through
the air, and I joined in it also; for I sang 'Ding-dong! ding-dong!'

"The church bell hangs high, and looks far around, and sees the
birds around it, and understands their language. The wind roars in
upon it through windows and loopholes; and the wind knows
everything, for he gets it from the air, which encircles all things,
and the church bell understands his tongue, and rings it out into
the world, 'Ding-dong! ding-dong!'

"But it was too much for me to hear and to know; I was not able
any longer to ring it out. I became so tired, so heavy, that the
beam broke, and I flew out into the gleaming Au, where the water is
deepest, and where the Au-mann lives, solitary and alone; and year
by year I tell him what I have heard and what I know. Ding-dong!
ding-dong!"

Thus it sounds complai