On the Future! how it tells Of the 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! In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, And a resolute endeavor Now now to sit or never, How they clang, and clash, and roar! 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, ing or the swelling in the anger of the bels- Of the bells Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, In the clamor and the clangor 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! From the rust within their throats And the people-ah, the people-- And who tolling, tolling, tolling, In that muffled monotone, On the human heart a stone- And their king it is who tolls; Rolls A pæan from the bells! With the pean of the bells! Of the bells: Keeping time, time, time, To the throbbing of the bells Of the bells, bells, bells- As he knells, knells, knells, To the rolling of the bells-- To the tolling of the bells, To the moaning and the groaning of the bells. AN ENIGMA. SELDOM we find," says Solomon Don Dunce, Half an idea in the profoundest sonnet. Through all the flimsy things we see at once As easily as through a Naples bonnetTrash of all trash!-how can a lady don it? Yet heavier far than your Petrarchan stuffOwl-downy nonsense that the faintest puff Twirls into trunk-paper the while you con it." And, veritably, Sol is right enough. The general tuckermanities are arrant Bubbles-ephemeral and so transparent But this is, now, you may depend upon itStable, opaque, immortal-all by dint Of the dear names that lie concealed within 't. ANNABEL LEE. Ir was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of ANNABEL LEE; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me. I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea: But we loved with a love that was more than love I and my ANNABEL LEE; With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me. And this was the reason that, long ago, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling In this kingdom by the sea. The angels, not half so happy in heaven, Went envying her and me Yes! that was the reason (as all men know, That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my ANNABEL LEE. But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of many far wiser than we Ard neither the angels in heaven above, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side TO MY MOTHER. BECAUSE I feel that, in the Heavens above, you None so devotional as that of "Mother," Therefore by that dear name I long have called You who are more than mother unto me, And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you, In setting my Virginia's spirit free. My mother-my cwn mother, who died early, Was but the mother of myself; but you Are mother to the one I loved so dearly, And thus are dearer than the mother I knew By that infinity with which my wife Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life |