Page:Edgar Allan Poe - how to know him.djvu/250

 230 EDGAR ALLAN POE �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 paean from the bells! And his merry bosom swells �With the paean of the bells ! And he dances, and he yells; ��� �