How still the Bells in Steeples stand — Bell-Bird

This poem associates bells of a church with bell-birds. The word frantic is suspicious. Silver feet can mean eloquent speech, and bird "an exceptionally smart or accomplished person, frequently ironical" _{(OED 4b)}. Possibly Dickinson made a mockery of clergymen, which explains the "swollen with the sky."

How still the Bells in Steeples stand
Till swollen with the Sky
They leap upon their silver Feet
In frantic Melody!

(F.1008/J.1008)

[1] Bells:: a hint on bell-birds.
[2] swollen:: the birds flew away.
[3] silver Feet:: some bell-birds have silver gray claws; or the bird's song.
[4] frantic Melody:: the bird's silver bell-like song.

"The well known Bell-bird is an active little thing, whose note is like a stroke upon a clear-toned silver bell." ─ Excursions and Adventures in New South Wales (1851)

The note of another species of Myzantha (the M. melanophrys) has acquired for it the name of the Bell-bird; companies of from ten to forty and even more "giving utterance to a peculiar garrulous note, which has been justly compared to the sound of distant sheep-bells, and which, when poured forth by a hundred throats from various parts of the forest, has a most singular effect." ─ A Popular History of Birds (1855)