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.

II.

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.

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 endeavour

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 clamour and the clangour 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 pæan from the bells;
And his merry bosom swells
With the pean of the bells;
And he dances and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the pean 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;

E

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.