For Whom the Bell Tolls

For Whom the Bell Tolls

There’s an old radical tradition

Of beating pots and pans in the street,

Making a public din

(Rather than a private dinner),

Ringing bells, banging pans, blowing horns,

With domestic utensils used in public,

Expressing disapprobation

Through community pandemonium,

And a cacophony of disharmony.

It’s ROUGH MUSICK,

A symbolic and cacophonous

Criticism of the ruling class.

A symbolic representation of disapproval,

Marking a transgression of agreed social norms

By the great and good;

A community PANDAEMONIUM

To indicate disapproval of rulers,

With a pantomimic declamation of their crimes,

The wrong-doer often shown in effigy,

Sometimes riding the SKIMMINGTON,

As in The Mayor of Casterbridge,

Or the 1825 Stroud weavers’ riots,

As the world is turned upside down.

But on Saturday evening at six,

To herald the COP26 Glasgow UN conference,

We show our disapproval in a different way,

But in a continuity with the past:

We are turning the world upside down,

With Clang for Climate:

So, try and come out on the streets if you wish:

Beat pots and pans in the street,

Making a public din

(Rather than a private dinner),

Ring bells, bang pans, blow horns,

With domestic utensils used in public,

Express your disapprobation

Through community pandemonium,

And a cacophony of disharmony.

It’s ROUGH MUSICK,

A symbolic and cacophonous

Criticism of the ruling class.

But with the added sonorous judgment

Of the tenor bell of St Laurence:

It will toll one hundred and thirty-five times.

‘For whom the bell tolls

Time marches on’.