Edgar Allan Poe: Poems of Edgar Allan Poe

4. THE BELLS (continued)

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 meaning 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,
                     Rolls
                A pćan from the bells!
            And his merry bosom swells
                With the pćan of the bells!
            And he dances, and he yells;
        Keeping time, time, time,
        In a sort of Runic rhyme,
                To the pćan 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.

1849