How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the tintinabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells-

From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II

Hear the mellow wedding bells,

Golden bells!

What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,

And all in tune,

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 rapture that impels

To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells, 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

In the startled ear of night

How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,

They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,

In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire.
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,

By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells;

Of the bells-

Of the beils, 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 melody 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 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,
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.

Edgar Allan Poe [1809-1849]

THE LOTOS-EATERS

"COURAGE!" he said, and pointed toward the land, "This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon." In the afternoon they came unto a land

In which it seemèd always afternoon.

All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And, like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.

A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;

And some through wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumberous sheet of foam below.
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops,
Three silent pinnacles of agèd snow,

Stood sunset-flushed; and, dewed with showery drops,
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.

The charmèd sunset lingered low adown

In the red West: through mountain clefts the dale
Was seen far inland, and the yellow down
Bordered with palm, and many a winding vale
And meadow, set with slender galingale;

A land where all things always seemed the same!
And round about the keel with faces pale,
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.

Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,
Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave
To each, but whoso did receive of them
And taste, to him the gushing of the wave
Far, far away did seem to mourn and rave
On alien shores; and if his fellow spake,
His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;
And deep-asleep he seemed, yet all awake,
And music in his ears his beating heart did make.

They sat them down upon the yellow sand,
Between the sun and moon upon the shore;
And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,
Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore
Most weary seemed the sea, weary the oar,
Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.
Then some one said, "We will return no more;"
And all at once they sang, "Our island home
Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam."
Alfred Tennyson [1809-1892]

ULYSSES

IT little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an agèd wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink

Life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed

Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known,-cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honored of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

I am part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough

Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!

As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me

Little remains: but every hour is saved