Ring! ring the bells, and bring The people to see the marrying! Let the gaunt and hungry and ragged poor Throng round the great cathedral door, To wonder what all the hubbub’s for, And sometimes stupidly wonder At so much sunshine and brightness which Fall from the church upon the rich, While the poor get all the thunder.
Ring, ring, merry bells, ring! O fortunate few, With letters blue, Good for a seat and a nearer view! Fortunate few, whom I dare not name; _Dilettanti!_ _Crême de la crême!_ We commoners stood by the street façade, And caught a glimpse of the cavalcade. We saw the bride In diamond pride With jewelled maidens to guard her side-- Six lustrous maidens in tarlatan. She led the van of the caravan; Close behind her, her mother (Dressed in gorgeous _moire antique_ That told as plainly as words could speak, She was more antique than the other) Leaned on the arm of Don Rataplan Santa Claus de la Muscovado Señor Grandissimo Bastinado. Happy mortal! fortunate man! And Marquis of El Dorado!
In they swept, all riches and grace, Silks and satins, jewels and lace; In they swept from the dazzled sun, And soon in the church the deed was done. Three prelates stood on the chancel high: A knot that gold and silver can buy, Gold and silver may yet untie, Unless it is tightly fastened; What’s worth doing at all’s worth doing well, And the sale of a young Manhattan belle Is not to be pushed or hastened; So two Very Reverends graced the scene, And the tall Archbishop stood between, By prayer and fasting chastened. The Pope himself would have come from Rome, But Garibaldi kept him at home. Haply these robed prelates thought Their words were the power that tied the knot; But another power that love-knot tied, And I saw the chain round the neck of the bride-- A glistening, priceless, marvellous chain, Coiled with diamonds again and again, As befits a diamond wedding; Yet still ’twas a chain, and I thought she knew it, And half-way longed for the will to undo it, By the secret tears she was shedding.
But isn’t it odd to think, whenever We all go through that terrible River, Whose sluggish tide alone can sever (The Archbishop says) the Church decree, By floating one in to Eternity, And leaving the other alive as ever, As each wades through that ghastly stream, The satins that rustle and gems that gleam, Will grow pale and heavy, and sink away To the noisome river’s bottom-clay! Then the costly bride and her maidens six Will shiver upon the bank of the Styx, Quite as helpless as they were born-- Naked souls, and very forlorn. The Princess, then, must shift for herself, And lay her royalty on the shelf; She, and the beautiful empress yonder, Whose robes are now the wide world’s wonder And even ourselves, and our dear little wives, Who calico wear each morn of their lives, And the sewing-girls, and _les chiffonniers_, In rags and hunger--a gaunt array-- And all the grooms of the caravan-- Aye, even the great Don Rataplan Santa Claus de la Muscovado Señor Grandissimo Bastinado-- That gold-encrusted, fortunate man-- All will land in naked equality; The lord of a ribboned principality Will mourn the loss of his _cordon_. Nothing to eat and nothing to wear Will certainly be the fashion there! Ten to one, and I’ll go it alone, Those most used to a rag and bone, Though here on earth they labour and groan, Will stand it best, as they wade abreast To the other side of Jordan. _Edmund Clarence Stedman._
