THE BELLS
by: Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
- ear the sledges with the bells
- Silver bells!
- What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
- How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
- In their 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.
- 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!
- 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
- Nownow 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 clangor of the bells!
- 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 peopleah, 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 pæan from the bells!
- And his merry bosom swells
- With the pæan of the bells!
- And he dances, and he yells;
- Keeping time, time, time,
- In a sort of Runic rhyme,
- To the pæan 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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POEMS BY EDGAR ALLAN POE |
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