{
 "id": "john-newton/the-tolling-bell",
 "title": "The Tolling Bell",
 "ordinal": "74",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "John Newton",
 "poet_slug": "john-newton",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Olney Hymns",
 "book_slug": "olney-hymns",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 215,
 "container": "Funeral Hymns",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1779,
  "venue": "Olney Hymns (1779)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_olney-hymns-in-three-bo_newton-john_1779",
   "https://cowperandnewtonmuseum.org.uk/bulletin/computerised-index-to-the-olney-hymns/",
   "https://archive.org/details/olneyhymnsinthre00cowpuoft"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/john-newton_william-cowper_olney-hymns",
  "file": "book-2.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Olney_Hymns_%281840%29",
   "https://archive.org/details/olneyhymnsinthre00cowpuoft"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-15"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 28,
  "n_stanzas": 7,
  "n_parts": 7,
  "longest_line_chars": 38,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [
  {
   "ordinal": "I",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    0,
    1
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "II",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "III",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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   "ordinal": "IV",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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   "ordinal": "V",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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  },
  {
   "ordinal": "VI",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
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   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "VII",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    6,
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   ]
  }
 ],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Oft as the bell, with solemn toll,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Speaks the departure of a soul,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let each one ask himself⁠—“Am I",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Prepared, should I be call’d to die?”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Only this frail and fleeting breath",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Preserves me from the jaws of death;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Soon as it fails at once I’m gone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And plunged into a world unknown.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then leaving all I loved below,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To God’s tribunal I must go⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Must hear the Judge pronounce my fate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And fix my everlasting state.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "4 But could I bear to hear him say,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Depart, accursed, far away;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With Satan in the lowest hell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou art for ever doom’d to dwell”?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "5 Lord Jesus! help me now to flee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And seek my hope alone in thee;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Apply thy blood, thy Spirit give,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Subdue my sin and let me live.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "6 Then when the solemn bell I hear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If saved from guilt I need not fear;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor would the thought distressing be⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perhaps it next may toll for me.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "7 Rather my spirit would rejoice,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And long and wish to hear thy voice;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Glad when it bids me earth resign,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Secure of heaven if thou art mine.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}