Poe wrote this poem about the church bells of Fordham University in the Bronx in 1845. One hundred and twenty-four years later, hip-hop was born three miles away from that very spot
Hear the sledges with the bells - Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, in the icy air of night!
With the stars that over sprinkle With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme
To the tintinnabulation resonating very fine
From the jingling and twinkling of the mellow wedding bells
Golden bells! What a world of happiness we know they must foretell!
Through the balmy air of night How they ring out their delight! -
From the molten - golden notes, And all in tune, hella tight
While a liquid ditty floats, on the moon from sounding cells
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells! How it dwells On the Future! - how it tells
To the swinging and the ringing Of the rapture that impels
Of the bells, bells, bells - Check the bells, bells, bells
Go to sleep to the rhyming and the chiming of the bells
Hear the loud alarm 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 horrified to speak, only shriek, and ignite
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire
A mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire
Leaping higher, higher, higher, with a deep desperate desire
And a resolute endeavor that accentuates the pyre
And how now to sit, or never, by the side of the moon
Oh, the bells, bells, bells! Know that terror's coming soon
How they clang, and they roar! What a horror they out-pour
On the bosom of the air, with eternity in store
How the danger ebbs and flows with the twanging, And the clanging
Yet the ear distinctly tells, In the jangling, And the wrangling
How the danger sinks and swells, in the anger of the bells -
Of the bells - Go to sleep to the clamor and the clanging 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! It excites
Hear it float like the rust within our throats, it's a groan
And the people - all the people - in the steeple, All alone
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling, In that muffled monotone
Feel a glory in so rolling On the human heart of stone, because
They are neither man nor woman - neither brute nor human
The grim reaper is king while he rolls and he rules
A paean from the bells as his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells! As he dances with the fools
Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme
To the paean of the bells: - To the throbbing of the bells -
Keeping time, time, time, As he knells, knells, knells
Go to sleep to the moaning and the groaning of the bells