Edgar Allen Poe:
The Bells
I
Hear the sledges
with the bells -
Silver bells!
What a world of
merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle,
tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of
night!
While the stars
that oversprinkle
All the heavens,
seem to twinkle
With a crystalline
delight;
Keeping time,
time, time,
In a sort of Runic
rhyme,
To the
tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells,
bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells,
bells -
From the jingling
and the tinkling of the bells.
II
Hear the mellow
wedding bells -
Golden bells!
What a world of
happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy
air of night
How they ring out
their delight! -
From the molten -
golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid
ditty floats
To the turtle - dove
that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the
sounding cells,
What a gush of
euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! -
how it tells
Of the rapture
that impels
To the swinging
and the ringing
Of the bells,
bells, bells -
Of the bells,
bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells,
bells -
To the rhyming and
the chiming of the bells!
III
Hear the loud
alarum bells -
Brazen bells!
What a tale of
terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled
ear of night
How they scream
out their affright!
Too much horrified
to speak,
They can only
shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous
appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad
expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher,
higher, higher,
With a desperate
desire,
And a resolute
endeavor
Now - now to sit,
or never,
By the side of the
pale - faced moon.
Oh, the bells,
bells, bells!
What a tale their
terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang,
and clash and roar!
What a horror they
outpour
On the bosom of
the palpitating air!
Yet the ear, it
fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger
ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear
distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger
sinks and swells,
By the sinking or
the swelling in the anger of the bells -
Of the bells -
Of the bells,
bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells,
bells -
In the clamor and
the clanging of the bells!
IV
Hear the tolling
of the bells -
Iron bells!
What a world of
solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of
the night,
How we shiver with
affright
At the melancholy
menace of their tone!
For every sound
that floats
From the rust
within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people -
ah, the people -
They that dwell up
in the steeple,
All alone,
And who, tolling,
tolling, tolling,
In that muffled
monotone,
Feel a glory in so
rolling
On the human heart
a stone -
They are neither
man nor woman -
They are neither
brute nor human -
They are Ghouls: -
And their king it
is who tolls: -
And he rolls,
rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the
bells!
And his merry
bosom swells
With the paean of
the bells!
And he dances, and
he yells;
Keeping time,
time, time,
In a sort of Runic
rhyme,
To the paean of
the bells: -
Of the bells:
Keeping time,
time, time
In a sort of Runic
rhyme,
To the throbbing
of the bells -
Of the bells,
bells, bells: -
To the sobbing of
the bells: -
Keeping time,
time, time,
As he knells,
knells, knells,
In a happy Runic
rhyme,
To the rolling of
the bells -
Of the bells,
bells, bells -
To the tolling of
the bells -
Of the bells,
bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells,
bells, -
To the moaning and
the groaning of the bells.
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