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 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, belts, 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,