Today’s Poem: The Bells
Oh, the tintinnabulation
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 tintinabulation 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 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! III. Hear the loud alarum bells — Brazen bells! What 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 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 — Bells, bells, bells — To the moaning and the groaning of the bells. ══════════════════════════
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After such a long poem — among the longest to appear here in Poems Ancient and Modern — we should put only the shortest of notes. Except, the poem doesn’t read long, does it?
Partly that’s because of the sing-songy meter, the repetition of words, and the alliteration — all the tricks that Poe almost uniquely gets away with, as we’ve noted before, looking at his poems “To Helen,” “Annabel Lee,” “To Science,” and “Eldorado.” What we’d wince at in other poets, we smile at in Poe.
Partly, too, the formal structure of the poem helps. From sleigh-bells in the first stanza, all jingly and jangly (Poe coined the word tintinnabulation for the poem) we move to wedding bells, alarm bells, and funeral bells, the changes pulling us along.
The poem reads shorter than its length for another reason, however — which is that the poem is, in fact, shorter than it appears, printed on the page.
“The Bells” is often described as having an irregular line length, from one to eight stresses per line in its trochaic meter. I want to suggest, however, that the lines are much more regular — if we grant Poe two indulgences: first, that many of the line breaks exist not as real line breaks (when we read the poem aloud) but as typographical ways to emphasize what is really an interior rhyme in a single line. And second, that Poe is playing with anacrusis, allowing himself a fairly constant extra-metrical two-syllable introduction to a foot.
Take the lines “How it swells! / How it dwells / On the Future! how it tells.” When we read it aloud, dramatically, that can become a single six-line line: “(how it) SWELLS / (how it) DWELLS / ON the / FU-ture / HOW it / TELLS.
Taken this way, the first stanza reads:
6 stresses: HEAR the / SLED-ges / WITH the / BELLS / — SIL-ver / BELLS!
6 stresses: WHAT a / WORLD of / MER-ri- / MENT their / MEL-o- / DY fore- / TELLS!
6 stresses: (how they) TINK-le / TINK-le / TINK-le / IN the / I-cy / AIR of / NIGHT
6 stresses: (while the) STARS that / OV-er- / SPRINK-le / (all the) HEAV-ens / SEEM to / twinkle
3 stresses: (with a) CHRYS-tal- / LINE de- / LIGHT;
6 stresses: KEEP-ing / TIME / TIME / TIME / (in a) SORT of / RUN-ic / RHYME,
6 stresses: (to the) TIN-tin- / A-bu- / LA-tion / (that so) MUS-ic / Al-ly / WELLS
7 stresses: (from the) BELLS / BELLS / BELLS / BELLS / BELLS / BELLS / BELLS /
3 stresses: (from the) JING-ling / (and the) TINk-ling / (of the) BELLS.
You may read the poem in slightly different ways, but — read aloud at speed, the way the poem wants to be treated — many of the metrical confusions and much of the poem’s length slip away.
And that’s Poe, isn’t it? His birthday is today, January 19, and for that day, it’s worth nodding at the strange and wonderful ear-worm magic in his verse that persuades us to indulge him.
When I'm kept awake by dogs baying at night, I amuse myself by calling it rintinabulation. It doesn't help me sleep, though.
Another favorite. I tend to read it with fewer stresses, but either way it does roll off the tongue with wonderful ease.