How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger 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
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,
A pæan from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the pean of the bells;
And he dances, and he yells,
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme
To the pean 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.
Helen! thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore That gently o'er a perfumed sea The weary way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs, have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo! in your brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psychè! from the regions which
Are holy land.
THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS.
This is the Ship of Pearl which (poets feign)
Sails the unshadow'd main,
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold Sea-Maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl :
Wreck'd is the Ship of Pearl ;
And every chamber'd cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies reveal'd:
Its iris'd ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unseal'd.
Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still as the spiral grew
He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Stretch'd in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering Sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is borne
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul !
As the swift seasons roll:
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.
Me only cruel immortality
Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms,
Here at the quiet limit of the world,
A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a dream
The ever-silent spaces of the East,
Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of Morn.
Alas for this grey shadow, once a man,
So glorious in his beauty and thy choice,
Who madèst him thy chosen, that he seem'd
To his great heart none other than a God!
I ask'd thee-" Give me immortality!"
Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile,
Like wealthy men who care not how they give.
But thy strong Hours, indignant, work'd their wills,
And beat me down, and marr'd and wasted me ;
And, though they could not end me, left me maim'd
To dwell in presence of immortal youth,
Immortal Age beside immortal Youth,
And all I was in ashes. Can thy love,
Thy beauty, make amends? though even now
Close over us the silver star, thy guide,
Shines in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears
To hear me. Let me go! Take back thy gift!
Why should a man desire in any way
To vary from the kindly race of men,
Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance
Where all should pause, as is most meet for all?
A soft air fans the cloud apart; there comes
A glimpse of that dark world where I was born.
Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals
From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure,
And bosom beating with a heart renew'd.
Thy cheek begins to redden through the gloom;
Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine
Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild team
Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise
And shake the darkness from their loosen'd manes
And beat the twilight into flakes of fire.
Lo! ever thus thou growest beautiful
In silence; then, before thine answer given,
Departest, and thy tears are on my cheek.
Why wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears,
And make me tremble lest a saying learn'd
In days far off, on that dark earth, be true?
"The Gods themselves can not recall their gifts."
Ay me! ay me! with what another heart,
In days far off, and with what other eyes
I used to watch (if I be he that watch'd)
The lucid outline forming round thee; saw
The dim curls kindle into sunny rings;
Changed with thy mystic change, and felt my blood
Glow with the glow that slowly crimson'd all
Thy presence and thy portals,-—while I lay,
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