No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently,
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free:
Up domes, up spires, up kingly halls,
Up fanes, up Babylon-like walls,
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers,
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathëd friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.

Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.

So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

As the angel Israfel,

And the giddy stars (so legends tell), Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell Of his voice, all mute.

Tottering above

In her highest noon, The enamoured moon Blushes with love,

While, to listen, the red levin (With the rapid Pleiads, even, Which were seven)

Pauses in Heaven.

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,

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 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 paæan 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 beiis,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells

To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

ANNABEL LEE

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love,

I and my Annabel Lee;

With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven

Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me;

Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we, Of many far wiser than we; And neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee: