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 toiling, toiling, toiling,
    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.

1849.

* * * * *

ULALUME.

  The skies they were ashen and sober;
    The leaves they were crisped and sere—­
    The leaves they were withering and sere;
  It was night in the lonesome October
    Of my most immemorial year;
  It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
    In the misty mid region of Weir—­
  It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
    In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

  Here once, through an alley Titanic. 
    Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul—­
    Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul. 
  These were days when my heart was volcanic
    As the scoriac rivers that roll—­
    As the lavas that restlessly roll
  Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
    In the ultimate climes of the pole—­
  That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
    In the realms of the boreal pole.

  Our talk had been serious and sober,
    But our thoughts they were palsied and sere—­
    Our memories were treacherous and sere—­
  For we knew not the month was October,
  And we marked not the night of the year—­
    (Ah, night of all nights in the year!)
  We noted not the dim lake of Auber—­
    (Though once we had journeyed down here)—­
  Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
    Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.