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The Bells

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 muffied monotone,

Feel a glory in so rolling

On the human heart a stoneThey 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 pæan 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,

29

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.

REFERENCES

1 Edgar Allan Poe. By George E. Woodberry. (Ameri

can Men of Letters series.) Boston, 1885.

2 Edgar Poe and his Critics. By Sarah Helen Whitman, New York, 1860.

8 Life, by J. H. Ingram, London, 1880.

4 Poets of America. By Edmund Clarence Stedman, New York, 1890. Pp. 225-272.

6 Mrs. Osgood.

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