St. Mary's Bells

It's pleasant in Holy Mary
By San Marie lagoon,
The bells they chime and jingle
From dawn to afternoon.
They rhyme and chime and mingle,
They pulse and boom and beat,
And the laughing bells are gentle
And the mournful bells are sweet.

Oh, who are the men that ring them,
The bells of San Marie,
Oh, who but the sonsie seamen
Come in from over sea.
And merrily in the belfries
They rock and sway and hale,
And send the bells a-jangle,
And down the lusty ale.

It's pleasant in Holy Mary
To hear the beaten bells
Come booming into music,
Which throbs, and clangs, and swells.
From sunset till the daybreak,
From dawn to afternoon,
In port of Holy Mary
On San Marie Lagoon.

by John Masefield (1878-1967) , "St. Mary's Bells", from Ballads, published 1903

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

by John Ireland (1879-1962) , "The bells of San Marie", 1918, published 1919. [medium voice and piano]
by Francis Alan Jackson (1917-) , "St. Mary's Bells", published 1950. [SSA chorus a cappella]
by Easthope Martin (-1925) , "St. Mary's Bells", published 1919 [medium voice and piano], from Five Poems by John Masefield, no. ?
by Sir Hugh Stevenson Roberton (1874-1952) , "St. Mary's Bells", published 1942. [mixed chorus a cappella]
by Harold Hinchcliffe Sykes , "St. Mary's Bells", published <<1951. [unison voices and piano]

Added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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