These are the voices of the pastors calling

In the names of St. Paul and of the halo-John

And of other holy and learned men, among them

Great choristers, propounders of hymns, trumpeters,

Jerome and the scrupulous Francis and Sunday women,

The nurses of the spirit’s innocence.

These are the voices of the pastors calling

Much rough-end being to smooth Paradise,

Spreading out fortress walls like fortress wings.

Deep in their sound the stentor Martin sings.

Dark Juan looks outward through his mystic brow …

Fach sexton has his sect. The bells have none.

These are the voices of the pastors calling

And calling like the long echoes in long sleep,

Generations of shepherds to generations of sheep.

Each truth is a sect though no bells ring for it.

And the bells belong to the sextons, after all,

As they jangle and dangle and kick their feet.