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 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
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
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells bells, bells, bells
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells
Bells! Bells! Bells! Bells! Bells! Of the bells!