The+Bells

1849  The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe

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 * Listen to the poem, making sure that the emotion in the voice, music and sound effect buttons are all checked.
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 * 1) **Summarize the meaning of each stanza, the tone Poe is trying to convey and the melodic words or phrases that help set the tone.**
 * 2) **Explain how Poe used language sounds, sensory details and imagery to create the tone in the poem "The Bells."**

The Bells was published in //Sartain's Union Magazine,// October, 1849. The introductory and trailing notes are presumed to have been written by the editor, John S. Hart.]

//EDGAR A. POE. The singular poem of Mr. Poe's, called "The Bells," which we published in our last Number, has been very extensively copied. There is a curious piece of literary history connected with this poem, which we may as well give now as at any other time. It illustrates the gradual development of an idea in the mind of a man of original genius. This poem came into our possession about a year since. It then consisted of eighteen lines! They were as follows://  The Bells — A Song The bells! — hear the bells! The merry wedding bells! The little silver bells! How fairy-like a melody there swells From the silver tinkling cells Of the bells, bells, bells! Of the bells!

The bells! — ah, the bells! The heavy iron bells! Hear the tolling of the bells! Hear the knells! How horrible a monody there floats From their throats — From their deep-toned throats! How I shudder at the notes From the melancholy throats Of the bells, bells, bells — Of the bells —

//About six months after this, we received the poem enlarged and altered nearly to its present size and form, and about three months since the author sent another alteration and enlargement, in which condition the poem was left at the time of his death.

We may remark in passing, that this is not Mr. Poe's last poem, as some of the papers have asserted. We have on hand one of his which probably is his last. It was received a short time before his decease. We shall give in in our January Number.//

[Although published a month after the final version of the poem, this is accepted as the first version. The manuscript upon which this text is based is presumed lost, although a similar manuscript, made by Poe about the same time, is now in the Koester collection of the University of Texas.]

[The poem noted here as "probably . . . his last" is [|"Annabel Lee,"] which appeared as promised in Sartain's for January of 1850, pp. 99-100, though by then it had already appeared in the New York Tribune and the Southern Literary Messenger.] (notes from: http://www.eapoe.org/) 1849  The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe I 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.

II 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 an 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!

III 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!

IV 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 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.