Hear the mellow wedding bells, What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! 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 bells, bells, bells, bells, To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells! Hear the loud alarum bells- What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! How they scream out their affright! 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! How they clang, and clash, and roar! And the clanging, How the danger ebbs and flows; 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! 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! From the rust within their throats And the people-ah, the people- And who tolling, tolling, tolling, On the human heart a stone- They are Ghouls: And their king it is who tolls; A pæan from the bells! Keeping time, time, time, As he knells, knells, knells, To the moaning and the groaning of the bells. lalume. THE skies they were ashen and sober; The leaves they were crispéd and sereThe leaves they were withering and sere; It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year; It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, In the misty mid region of Weir It was down by the dank tarn of Auber, Here once, through an alley Titanic, Our talk had been serious and sober, But our thoughts they were palsied and sere— Our memories were treacherous and sereFor we knew not the month was October, And we marked not the night of the year(Ah, night of all nights in the year! We noted not the dim lake of Auber— (Though once we had journeyed down here— Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber, Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. And now, as the night was senescent, Distinct with its duplicate horn. And I said " She is warmer than Dian: She revels in a region of sighs: These cheeks, where the worm never dies, To shine on us with her bright eyes- But Psyche, uplifting her finger, Said "Sadly this star I mistrustHer pallor I strangely mistrust:Oh, hasten!-oh, let us not linger! Oh, fly!-let us fly!-for we must." In terror she spoke, letting sink her Wings until they trailed in the dust- Plumes till they trailed in the dust- I replied "This is nothing but dreaming: Its Sybilic splendour is beaming With hope and in beauty to-night :- Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming, And be sure it will lead us aright We safely may trust to a gleaming That cannot but guide us aright, Since it flickers up to heaven through the night." Thus I pacified Psyche, and kissed her, And we passed to the end of the vista, |