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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
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