The Bells

Edgar Allan Poe

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!

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!

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.

Background and Analysis of This Poem

Edgar Allan Poe's The Bells is one of his most musical and theatrical poems, built around the repeated ringing of bells and the changing emotions those bells awaken. It was written in the final period of Poe's life and published posthumously in 1849. The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore records several early and revised versions of the poem, showing that Poe worked through different stages before arriving at the longer, more elaborate form now usually read. That drafting history is useful because The Bells can feel spontaneous, almost feverish, yet its effects are carefully engineered.

The poem moves through four kinds of bells: silver sleigh bells, golden wedding bells, brazen alarm bells and iron funeral bells. This progression gives the poem its emotional architecture. It begins in delight, with the light tinkling of bells in the winter air, then swells into the rich harmony of celebration and marriage. From there, the sound darkens into panic, as bells scream through fire and danger, before finally sinking into the heavy tolling of death. Poe turns sound into a life-cycle. What begins as music ends as doom.

The most striking feature of the poem is its use of repetition. Words such as "bells", "tinkle", "clang", "clash", "roar" and "toll" are repeated so insistently that the poem begins to behave like the sounds it describes. At first, the repetition is playful and chiming. Later, it becomes frantic, then oppressive. This is not repetition for padding, though Poe has occasionally been accused of enjoying a good echo past the point of mercy. The repetitions alter in texture as the poem advances, so that the reader experiences the emotional shift physically, through rhythm and sound.

Each section has its own atmosphere. The silver bells belong to youthful pleasure and crisp brightness; the golden bells to harmony, fulfilment and social joy. The brazen bells introduce disorder, with their harsh metal and urgent warnings. By the time the iron bells arrive, the poem has entered a world of monotony and dread. Poe's choice of metals matters. They grow heavier, harsher and colder as the poem proceeds. The bells are not only heard; they seem to harden around the reader.

There is also a social dimension to the poem's soundscape. Bells mark communal experiences: travel, weddings, fires, funerals, religious observance and public alarm. The Academy of American Poets includes The Bells among Poe's public domain works and traces its version to The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe, published in 1850 Academy of American Poets. The bells call people together, warn them, celebrate with them and mourn over them. Yet the poem gradually strips away human agency. By the final section, the bell-ringers become ghoulish figures, and the sound seems less like something people control than something that controls them.

For modern readers, The Bells can feel almost experimental in its intensity. It asks to be heard as much as read. Poe is interested in meaning, certainly, but he is equally interested in how language can imitate sensation and overwhelm the nerves. The poem's journey from merriment to terror mirrors the way ordinary sounds can gather emotional force through context. A bell is never just a bell. It may announce joy, danger, worship, death or memory. Poe's genius here is to let that single sound ring through a whole human life, until the final toll seems to come not from a tower, but from time itself.

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