Promises of the Constitution: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
by Pamela Romney
Openshaw, pp. 62-63.
3.12 Ringing For
Liberty
When the Declaration of
Independence was announced, bells rang throughout the thirteen colonies as word
was carried abroad. A huge bronze bell, now known as the Liberty Bell, hung on
the Philadelphia State House, the scene of the signing. It first announced the
breathtaking news that a new and independent country had been born.
Its elderly keeper was
charged with ringing the bell for prominent funerals, elections, and state
occasions. As the story is told, he employed the help of his young grandson on
the day the Declaration of Independence was signed.
The following poem relates
the anticipation of the people and their rejoicing when independence was
announced:
There was tumult in the city,
in the quaint old Quaker town,
And the streets were rife
with people, pacing restless up and down;
People gathering at corners,
where they whispered each to each,
And the sweat stood on their
temples, with the earnestness of speech.
“Will they do it? Dare they
do it? Who is speaking? What’s the news?”
“What of Adams? What of
Sherman? Oh, God grant they won’t refuse!”
“Make some way, there! Let me
nearer! I am stifling!” “Stifle, then!
When a nation’s life’s at
hazard, we’ve no time to think of men!”
So they beat against the
portal, man and woman, maid and child;
And the July sun in heaven on
the scene looked down and smiled.
The same sun that saw the
Spartan shed his patriot blood in vain,
Now beheld the soul of
freedom all unconquer’d rise again.
See! See! The dense crowd
quivers through all the lengthy line,
As the boy beside the portal
looks forth to give the sign!
With his small hands upward
lifted, breezes dallying with his hair,
Hark! With deep clean
intonation, breaks his young voice on the air.
Hushed the people’s swelling
murmur, list the boy’s exultant cry!
“Ring,” he shouts, “Ring,
Grandpa, ring, oh, ring for liberty!”
And straightway at the
signal, the old bellman lifts his hand,
And sends the good news,
making iron music through the land.
How they shouted! What
rejoicing! How the old bell shook the air,
Till the clang of freedom
ruffled the calm, gliding Delaware!
How the bonfires and the
torches illumed the night’s repose,
And from . . . flames like
fabled Phoenix our glorious Liberty arose!
That old bell now is silent,
and hushed its iron tongue,
But the spirit it awakened,
still lives—forever young.
And when we greet the smiling
sunlight, on the fourth of each July,
We’ll ne’er forget the
bellman, who twixt the earth and sky,
Rang out our Independence,
which, please God, shall never die!
The Liberty Bell cracked
fifty-nine years later while being rung to commemorate the funeral of John
Marshall, fourth chief justice of the Supreme Court and signer of the
Declaration of Independence. It stands today near Independence Hall in
Philadelphia, a testament to the love of liberty that burns in the hearts of
all American patriots.