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1849 The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe The Bells was published in Sartain's Union Magazine, October, 1849. The introductory and trailing notes are presumed to have been written by the editor, John S. Hart.] EDGAR A. POE. The singular poem of Mr. Poe's, called "The Bells," which we published in our last Number, has been very extensively copied. There is a curious piece of literary history connected with this poem, which we may as well give now as at any other time. It illustrates the gradual development of an idea in the mind of a man of original genius. This poem came into our possession about a year since. It then consisted of eighteen lines! They were as follows: |
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The Bells — A Song
The bells! — hear the bells! |
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About six months after this, we received the poem enlarged and altered nearly to its
present size and form, and about three months since the author sent another alteration
and enlargement, in which condition the poem was left at the time of his death. We may remark in passing, that this is not Mr. Poe's last poem, as some of the papers have asserted. We have on hand one of his which probably is his last. It was received a short time before his decease. We shall give in in our January Number. [Although published a month after the final version of the poem, this is accepted as the first version. The manuscript upon which this text is based is presumed lost, although a similar manuscript, made by Poe about the same time, is now in the Koester collection of the University of Texas.] [The poem noted here as "probably . . . his last" is "Annabel Lee," which appeared as promised in Sartain's for January of 1850, pp. 99-100, though by then it had already appeared in the New York Tribune and the Southern Literary Messenger.] (notes from: http://www.eapoe.org/) |
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1849 I
Hear the sledges with the bells-
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
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 tintinnabulation 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 an 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 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 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;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean 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.
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[For this poem, Poe received $15 from Sartain's. ] [The indentation of lines in this poem is highly idiosyncratic. It is clearly a carefully considered pattern, but for reasons that are uncertain. As a handwritten document, the spacing in the manuscript is difficult to judge, and since Poe himself died without being able to confirm the typesetting, we will probably never know precisely what he intended. As much as possible the scheme has been set here to match that in Sartain's.] (notes from: http://www.eapoe.org/) -The End- |
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