Hear the mellow wedding bells-Golden bells!What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! Through the balmy air of nightHow they ring out their delight!-From the molten-golden notes,And all in tune,What a liquid ditty floatsTo the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats On the moon!Oh, from out the sounding cellsWhat a gush of euphony voluminously wells! How it swells!How it dwellsOn the Future!-how it tellsOf the rapture that impelsTo the swinging and the ringingOf 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 nightHow 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 endeavorNow-now to sit, or never,By the side of the pale-faced moon.Oh, the bells, bells, bells!What a tale their terror tellsOf Despair!How they clang, and clash, and roar!What a horror they outpourOn the bosom of the palpitating air!Yet the ear, it fully knows,By the twangingAnd the clanging,How the danger ebbs and flows;Yet the ear distinctly tells,In the janglingAnd 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 affrightAt the melancholy menace of their tone!For every sound that floatsFrom the rust within their throatsIs 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 rollingOn 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,RollsA paean from the bells!And his merry bosom swellsWith 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.
Poe in G Minor BY JEFFERY DEAVER
The year is 1971. I’m sitting on a stool on a low stage, two spotlights shining in my face. I clutch my dreadnought-size guitar. (Think Bob Dylan’s Gibson Hummingbird on the cover of Nashville Skyline, but without the hummingbird.)
The venue is called the Chez, which I’ve recently learned means “The house of…” in French. (Not usually talented at languages, I pay attention in that particular class because I have a breathless crush on my professor, a cross between Linda Ronstadt and Claudine Longet, who, yes, shot that skier, but I don’t care.)
The Chez is a coffeehouse in Columbia, Missouri, where I’m a junior in the university’s Journalism School. I come here to perform folk songs in the evenings once or twice a week. The admission is free, the frothy pre-Starbucks concoctions are cheap, and owing to its location in a church, the place is alcohol-free. All of which means the audiences are sober, attentive, and-fortunately for me-forgiving.
Though I’m at school to become the next Walter Cronkite, singing and songwriting are my passions, and if I’d been able to make a living on the stage I’d have signed up in an instant-no insurance plan or 401(k) needed-even if the devil himself was the head of the record label’s A &R department.
This Friday night I begin fingerpicking a melody that’s not of my composition. It was written by Phil Ochs, a young singer-songwriter central to the folk music scene of the sixties and early seventies. He wrote a number of songs that embodied the psyche of that era, like “Draft Dodger Rag” and “I Ain’t Marching Anymore,” but the song that I’m performing this Friday is not social or political. It’s a lyrical ballad-one that I love and with which I often open my sets.
Ochs generally wrote both the music and words for his songs, but for this tune he created the melody only; the lyrics were from Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Bells.” The poem features four stanzas, each describing bells’ tolling for different occasions: a happy social outing, a marriage, a tragedy, and finally a funeral. The first stanza concludes:
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.
Is “The Bells” Poe’s best poem? No. It’s a bit of a trifle, lacking the insight and brooding power he was capable of. But is it a pure pleasure to read aloud or perform? Absolutely. By the final verse my audiences were invariably singing along.