To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells! 35 Hear the loud alarum bells - What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! How they scream out their affright! Too much horrified to speak, They can only shriek, shriek, Out of time, 40 In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, By the side of the pale-faced moon. O, the bells, bells, bells! What a tale their terror tells Of Despair! 50 How they clang, and clash, and roar! What a horror they outpour 55 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, And the wrangling, How the danger sinks and swells, 60 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! 65 70 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! 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 75 80 85 They are neither man nor woman They are neither brute nor human And their king it is who tolls, And he rolls, rolls, rolls, To the moaning and the groaning of the bells! BUGLE SONG ALFRED TENNYSON ALFRED TENNYSON (1809-1892), probably the greatest and certainly the most widely read poet of the last half-century, was born at Somersby, Lincolnshire. His early education he received at home, entering Cambridge at eighteen, where he took the Chancellor's Prize for the best English poem. His long life was devoted exclusively to literature. In 1830 he published a volume of poems, and a second volume two years later. These poems, though not without defects, were full of promise, but they met with scant favor at the hands of the critics. For ten years he remained silent, in the meantime studying and perfecting his art. In 1842 he published a third volume, containing many of his former poems in revised form and much new material. He at once became the foremost figure in English letters, a position he maintained till his death. In 1850, upon the death of Wordsworth, he was appointed poet laureate. His principal works are 'Locksley Hall,' 'The Princess,' 'Maud,' ' Idylls of the King,' and ' In Memoriam,' together with a great number of short poems of rare beauty. All his works are marked by surpassing beauty of form, elevation of thought, and great moral earnestness. He was raised to the peerage in 1884. THE splendor falls on castle walls And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, O hark! O hear! how thin and clear, O sweet and far from cliff and scar G ΙΟ 5 Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. O Love, they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river: Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow forever and forever. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 15 THE BROOK ALFRED TENNYSON I COME from haunts of coot and hern, I make a sudden sally And sparkle out among the fern, By thirty hills I hurry down, And half a hundred bridges. Till last by Philip's farm I flow To join the brimming river; For men may come and men may go, 5 ΤΟ |