Songs of 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! How they scream out their affright! They can only shriek, shriek, In the 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. What a tale their terror tells Of despair! How they clang, and clash, and roar! Songs of What a horror they outpour Yet the ear it fully knows, 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— 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— 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— And their king it is who tolls; And he rolls, rolls, rolls, Rolls A pæan from 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, Songs of Songs of In a happy Runic rhyme, To the rolling of the bells,— To the tolling of the bells, To the moaning and the groaning of the bells EDGAR ALLAN POE. Sports and Pastimes In ancient tapestries, centuries old, you sometimes see, wrought in delicate needlework that is faded with the lapse of years, pictures of the sports of the period. There will be quaint scenes showing otter and bear hunting, swans' nesting, hawking, chasing the deer, and the like; in-door scenes, too, depicting pretty pages strumming musical instruments, and lovely ladies at their tambour or 'broidery frames. The poetry of each passing age preserves pictures of its plays and diversions still more perfectly than worn and tattered tapestry, and the verses we have chosen cover a bewildering variety of pastimes and recreations. The poets have sounded the praises of almost every kind of sport: angling, swimming, skating, bubble-blowing, going a-Maying, walking, riding, whittling, nutting, the country pleasures of "the barefoot boy," the joys of reading, the delights of music, and the exhilarations of cruising and travelling. One poem of the immediate present, Beeching's "Bicycling Song," shows us that the sport of the moment need not of necessity be too commonplace to be wrought into verse. At first thought the amusements of these latter days are so swift and breathless, so complicated with steam, electricity, and other great forces of the new era, that they seem less poetic than the picturesque frolics of milkmaids and shepherds, the games of the old Greeks or the gay sports of the days of chivalry. But after all, as Lowell said, there is as much poetry in the iron horses that eat fire as in those of Diomed that fed on men. If you cut an apple across, you may trace in it the lines of the blossom that the bee hummed around in May; and so the soul of poetry survives in things prosaic." 66 |