Since folks seem to be taking to my singing quite well, I’ve decided to try out doing a full-length song. This here is a poem by Edgar Allan Poe, and I felt it to have such a strong emotional, Christmas vibe that I chose this as the perfect gift for my audience this Yuletide season. I wanted to see if I could sing this poem aloud instead of only reading it . . . and I quite like the results.
This song possesses a certain timelessness about it, perhaps birthed during the Winter months (I’m not sure if it was, but it certainly feels as so), that lives on through the ages——and I do mean the four great Ages of Man. You will notice the first segment he announces the silver bells, in the second segment it is the golden bells, the third is the brazen bells, and lastly the fourth he hears the iron bells.
Could this signify and reflect the Age of Silver, the Age of Gold, the Age of Bronze and the Age of Iron?
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This here is the full text of the poem so that you may read along as you listen . . .
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I
Hear the sledges with the bells——
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretellsHow 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.
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II
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 all 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!
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III
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;——
Yes, 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.
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IV
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 sleep 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,
But are pestilential carcasses disparted from their souls——
Called Ghouls:——
And their king it is who tolls:——
And he rolls, rolls, rolls, rolls,
A Pæen from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the pæen of the bells!
And he dances and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the pæen 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.
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