The Bells

Edgar Allan Poe

Published posthumously in 1849 in four stanzas

(only stanzas III & IV quoted here)

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.