#100

[frenchroast.livejournal.com]

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 clamour and the clangour of the bells!

~Edgar Allan Poe