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In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
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,
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. 50
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 55
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; 60
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, 65
Of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!
Hear the tolling of the bells, 70
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! 75
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, 80
All alone,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone— 85
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 pæan of the bells,
And he dances, and he yells: 95
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the pæan of the bells,
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time, 100
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, 105
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, 110
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
Without reading the poem, and looking only at the title, one may believe the poem will be about some sort of bells. We, personally, thought of Christmas bells, or of church bells as you walk through town.
The bells are ringing to alert everyone of the fire that has sprung up. The bells try and stop the fire but it continues. It is night and the moon is out, maybe a full moon. The fire grows so high and almost reaches the moon. The bells still continue ringing, loudly, abruptly. Everyone knows danger is near when the bells fade out and in "the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells."
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! 40
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, 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. 50
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 55
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; 60
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, 65
Of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!
A rusty iron bell is ringing. People gather at the church steeple, but they are ghosts. These are funeral bells. The ghouls or ghosts are the ones ringing the eerie bells, happily, in the steeple for all to hear, in "a happy runic rhyme."
Hear the tolling of the bells, 70
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! 75
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, 80
All alone,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone— 85
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, 90
Rolls
A pæan from the bells;
And his merry bosom swells
With the pæan of the bells,
And he dances, and he yells: 95
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the pæan of the bells,
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time, 100
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, 105
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, 110
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
In the last two stanzas, there is a negative feeling and mood about the types of bells that the reader reads about. In the third stanza you have the brazen, alarm bells, that make the reader horrified yet alert. Then in the last stanza you have the iron, funeral bells. These funeral bells add to the eeriness and fear in the poem. Another part that adds to these emotions is the mentioning of "Ghouls" and people who are not of man or woman.
When you stop looking at only the bells and pay attention to the story in the poem, you begin to recognize the theme of the poem which is the cycle of life. The gentle sleigh bells as the beginning of life, then the wedding bells for the start of an independent life. Then as life becomes hectic, so does the poem, with the alarm bells and chaos with the fire. Then finally, the funeral bells, signaling death, which is portrayed as scary but eventually embrassed happily.
In the beginning of the poem, Poe writes of sleigh bells and wedding bells. These types of bells have a light and gentle connotation to them. Then when you move to the third stanza of the poem the reader sees a change in tone. The poem changes to a chaotic, alarming mood with the mention of alarm bells and fire. After this state of chaos, the mood changes once again in the last stanza as that chaos turns to fear, with the change of alarm bells to funeral bells.
There is also word choices that help make this shift in the poem, such as "jingle and tingle" to "clanging, clashing, and roaring" then finally to "moan and groan."
After reading the poem, the reader recognizes the poem is about many different kinds of bells and what emotion they provoke in a person as you read. Each bell has its own story along with its own sound to tell its story.