The Circle Of The Bells
Words and Music Pat Drummond
For Philip Goodyear and the Adelaide bell ringers
Dateline: St Xavier's Catholic Cathedral, Adelaide

Ah, wake Up Adelaide,
It's Sunday
Listen to the bells of the Cathedral
Monday to Saturday
Sing your songs of trade
Today you're making music for the people

Chorus: Underneath the canopy the canticle of hope
You raise your heart and your hand to the rope
A mystical marathon, a musical spell where
Myth and mathematics come together
In the Circle Of The Bells

Spinning into vertigo
the streets below
ring and ripple to the patterns on the pages
Dorian, Iolian, Myxilydian
singin' to the city in the syncopated rhythm of the ages

Chorus

Essentially lonely, each bell rope is only
one heart, one hope and one hand
but played in communion
they sing of the union
that the angels still hope for in Man

Hour after hour they toll
The great bells roll
high above the shadows on the ceiling
spinning to the circle below
the velvet ropes
go dancing to the patterns they are pealing

Chorus

My strings lilt and linger
they dance on my fingers
and sing of the hopes of one man
but the bells of St Xavier's
remind that salvation waits
when we all join our hands
and our hearts
in the Circle of Man

Wake up Adelaide
Listen To The Circle of the Bells x 2

Chess Set Homepage / The Age Of Dissent / The Descent Of Age / Back to Chess Set Script

Reflection Bah! Humbug! and the essential difference between Myth and Fantasy.

---