"Bells For John Whiteside's Daughter" is an elegy by

John Crowe Ransom John Crowe Ransom (April 30, 1888 – July 3, 1974) was an American educator, scholar, literary critic, poet, essayist and editor. He is considered to be a founder of the New Criticism school of literary criticism. As a faculty member at Kenyon ...

published in 1924. It was first collected in his 1924 anthology ''Chills and Fever'', and is now considered his most-anthologized work. The five stanza poem reflects on the impact that unexpected death has on life by describing the death of a once lively young girl, once loud and energetic, but now silent. The reference to bells alludes to

John Donne John Donne ( ; 22 January 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a clergy, cleric in the Church of England. Under royal patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's ...

's " Devotions upon Emergent Occasions", which includes the lines, "never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee."

References

American poems {{poem-stub