Hear the sledges with the bellsâ
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
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 tintinabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
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Hear the mellow wedding 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,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
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,
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
Hear the loud alarum bellsâ
What 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,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
Nowânow to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
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,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bellsâ
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!
Hear the tolling of the bellsâ
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
And the peopleâah, the peopleâ
They that dwell up in the steeple,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stoneâ
They are neither man nor womanâ
They are neither brute nor humanâ
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
And his merry bosom swells
With the pĂŠan of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the pĂŠan of the bellsâ
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bellsâ
Of the bells, bells, bellsâ
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
To the rolling of the bellsâ
Of the bells, bells, bellsâ
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bellsâ
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
