The bells!—ah the
bells!
The little silver bells!
How fairy-like a melody there floats
From their throats—
From their merry little throats—
From the silver, tinkling throats
Of the bells, bells, bells—
Of the bells!
The bells!—ah, the
bells!
The heavy iron bells!
How horrible a monody there floats
From their throats—
From their deep-toned throats—
From their melancholy throats
How I shudder at the notes
Of the bells, bells, bells—
Of the bells!
In the autumn of 1848 Poe added another line to this
poem, and sent it to the editor of the ‘Union
Magazine’. It was not published. So,
in the following February, the poet forwarded to the
same periodical a much enlarged and altered transcript.
Three months having elapsed without publication, another
revision of the poem, similar to the current version,
was sent, and in the following October was published
in the ‘Union Magazine’.
* * * *
*
3. ULALUME
This poem was first published in Colton’s ‘American
Review’ for December 1847, as “To——Ulalume:
a Ballad.” Being reprinted immediately in
the ‘Home Journal’, it was copied into
various publications with the name of the editor,
N. P. Willis, appended, and was ascribed to him.
When first published, it contained the following additional
stanza which Poe subsequently, at the suggestion of
Mrs. Whitman wisely suppressed:
Said we then—the two, then—“Ah,
can it
Have been that
the woodlandish ghouls—
The pitiful, the
merciful ghouls—
To bar up our path and to ban it
From the secret
that lies in these wolds—
Had drawn up the spectre of a planet
From the limbo
of lunary souls—
This sinfully scintillant planet
From the Hell
of the planetary souls?”
* * * *
*
4. TO HELEN
“To Helen” (Mrs. S. Helen Whitman) was
not published Until November 1848, although written
several months earlier. It first appeared in the
‘Union Magazine’ and with the omission,
contrary to the knowledge or desire of Poe, of the
line, “Oh, God! oh, Heaven—how my
heart beats in coupling those two words”.
* * * *
*
5. ANNABEL LEE
“Annabel Lee” was written early in 1849,
and is evidently an expression of the poet’s
undying love for his deceased bride although at least
one of his lady admirers deemed it a response to her
admiration. Poe sent a copy of the ballad to
the ‘Union Magazine’, in which publication
it appeared in January 1850, three months after the
author’s death. Whilst suffering from “hope
deferred” as to its fate, Poe presented a copy
of “Annabel Lee” to the editor of the
‘Southern Literary Messenger’, who published
it in the November number of his periodical, a month
after Poe’s death. In the meantime the
poet’s own copy, left among his papers, passed
into the hands of the person engaged to edit his works,
and he quoted the poem in an obituary of Poe in the
New York ‘Tribune’, before any one else
had an opportunity of publishing it.
