11. I here produce the poem in the hope that every one who studies my System will learn it by the Analytic-Synthetic method, and when he has learned the first stanza he should then glance at my Analysis of it which follows the poem and compare his work with mine. Let him then learn the rest of the poem--and thereafter, as a genuine exercise of his _reviving_ power and as a training in attention, let him recall it as often as once a week for as many weeks as his desire for improvement continues, or until the recital of it becomes merely automatic. THE BELLS. 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. 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! 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 air, 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!