Here you go. I sort of know what the tune is already. Obviously sort of a rhythm like Good King W. you will notice a couple of Catholic things if you are Catholic. Happy solstice if, as my friend informed me, you use the white man's calendar. I guess it has already come and gone for others. mg

SOLSTICE BELLS

CHORUS: Ring the bells of loveliness. Ring the bells of sorrow.
Some were ringing yesterday and more will ring tomorrow.

When the days are short and cold and the nights are darkest,
When hopes are hanging by a thread and memories are starkest,
Heard by people everywhere with perfect pitch and timing,
First a tinkle here and there and then a mighty chiming.

They ring from little churches and from every ship at sea,
And from the massive mountaintops wherever folks are free,
From every home and nation, the message they are bringing.
You thought that you could silence us but once again we're ringing.

In the days we were enslaved, their music was forbidden,
Their brass and silver melted down but many had been hidden
Under stones and inside walls when tyrannies abounded,
But mostly in those hearts who still remembered how they sounded.

There was a cost to bring them back, a cost that some paid dearly.
Some can see it not at all, and some can see it clearly;
But all can join in joyful hope and greet each other well,
And add their best good wishes to the ring of every bell.

That crops will grow, that peace will hold, that every child is healthy,
That all will prosper in this year, the humble and the wealthy;
That weather will be clement and the ground will not be shaken,
That freedom will return to all from whom it has been taken.