Episode 24: The Bell Tale Heart

Ranker: 15 Bizarre Facts About the Tragic Life of Edgar Allan Poe

the burial site of Edgar Allan Poe, 519 West Fayette Street, Baltimore, Maryland, USA: Westminster Hall and Burying Ground

E. A. Poe Society of Baltimore: Results of Tests on the Hair of Virginia and Edgar A. Poe: Arsenic, Lead, Mercury, Nickel, Uranium, & Vanadium

Saram Elmira Royster

Death of Edgar Allan Poe:

• Wikipedia

• Poe Museum

• Smithsonian Museum/Magazine

• Biography.com

• Openculture:

http://www.openculture.com/2015/10/the-mystery-of-edgar-allan-poes-death-19-theories-on-what-caused-the-poets-demise-166-years-ago-today.html

“The Bells“, Edgar Allan Poe, courtesy of Bartleby.com

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.     

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     

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!     

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 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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