By the fide 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 diftinctly tells

In the jangling,

And the wrangling,

How the danger finks and swells, By the finking or the swelling in the the bells

anger

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 filence of the night,

How we fhiver with affright

At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats

From the ruft 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,

5

A pean 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;
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.

Edgar A. Poe.