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! | 5 |
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, | 10 |
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, | 15 |
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, | 20 |
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, | 25 |
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! | |
How it swells! | |
How it dwells | |
On the Future! how it tells | |
Of the rapture that impels | 30 |
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! | 35 |
|
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! | 40 |
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, | 45 |
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. | 50 |
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 | 55 |
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; | 60 |
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, | 65 |
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, | 70 |
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! | 75 |
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, | 80 |
All alone, | |
And who tolling, tolling, tolling, | |
In that muffled monotone, | |
Feel a glory in so rolling | |
On the human heart a stone— | 85 |
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, | 90 |
Rolls | |
A pæan from the bells; | |
And his merry bosom swells | |
With the pæan of the bells, | |
And he dances, and he yells: | 95 |
Keeping time, time, time, | |
In a sort of Runic rhyme, | |
To the pæan of the bells, | |
Of the bells: | |
Keeping time, time, time, | 100 |
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, | 105 |
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, | 110 |
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, | |
Bells, bells, bells— | |
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells. |