III

Hear the loud alarum bells

Brazen bells!

What a tale of terror, now their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night

How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shrick,

Out of tune,

40

In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire, 45
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,

And a resolute endeavor
Now- now to sit, or never,
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,

50

355

60

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 clamor and the clangor 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 or woman
They are neither brute nor human
They are Ghouls":

And their king it is who tolls:
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,

Rolls

66

70

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.

ELDORADO

GAILY bedight,

A gallant knight,

In sunshine and in shadow,

Had journeyed long,

Singing a song,

In search of Eldorado.°

5

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

HYMN TO THE NIGHT

Ασπασίη, τρίλλιστος.

I HEARD the trailing garments of the Night
Sweep through her marble halls!

I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
From the celestial walls!

I felt her presence, by its spell of might,
Stoop o'er me from above;

The calm, majestic presence of the Night,
As of the one I love.

5

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,

The manifold, soft chimes,

10

That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,
Like some old poet's rhymes.

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air

My spirit drank repose;

The fountain of perpetual peace flows there-
From those deep cisterns flows.

15

O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear
What man has borne before!

Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,
And they complain no more.

20