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Library of the best American literature: Containing the lives of our authors in story form, their portraits, their homes, and their personal traits, how they worked and what they wrote; choice selections from eminent writers, embracing great American poets and novelists, foremost women in American letters, distinguished critics and essayists, our national humorists, noted journalists and magazine contributors, popular writers for young people, great orators and public lecturers

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Library of the best American literature: Containing the lives of our authors in story form, their portraits, their homes, and their personal traits, how they worked and what they wrote; choice selections from eminent writers, embracing great American poets and novelists, foremost women in American letters, distinguished critics and essayists, our national humorists, noted journalists and magazine contributors, popular writers for young people, great orators and public lecturers

American literature

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!

          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 pæan from the bells!
          And his merry bosom swells
            With the pæan of the bells!
          And he dances and he yells;
          Keeping time, time, time,
          In a sort of Runic rhyme,
            To the pæan 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,――

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