Ringing the Bells
Edgar A. Poe
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
clangor 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.