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! How they scream out their affright! They can only shriek, shriek, In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, And a resolute endeavour 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 ! 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; 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, bells, bells, bells, In the clamour and the clangour of the bells! IV. Hear the tolling of the bells- What a world of solemn thought their monody compels ! 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, 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— And their king it is who tolls; And he rolls, rolls, rolls, Rolls A pæan from the bells! With the pean of the bells! In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the pæan of the bellsOf 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; As he knells, knells, knells, In a happy Runic rhyme, To the rolling of the bells- To the tolling of the bells, Bells, bells, bells To the moaning and the groaning of the bells. TO ONE IN PARADISE. I. THOU wast that all to me, love, All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, II. Ah, dream too bright to last! Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise But to be overcast ! 66 A voice from out the Future cries, (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies, Mute, motionless, aghast! III. For, alas! alas! with me The light of life is o'er! "No more-no more-no more (Such language holds the solemn sea Or the stricken eagle soar! IV. And all my days are trances, In what ethereal dances, By what eternal streams. THE VALLEY OF UNREST. Once it smiled a silent dell Where the people did not dwell ; |