The Bells

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
All the heavens seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight

Keeping time, time, time
With a sort of Runic rhyme
From the tintinnabulation
That so musically wells

From the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells
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
Through the dances and the yells
And the rapture that impels

How it swells
How it dwells
On the future
How it tells

From the swinging and the ringing
Of the molten golden bells
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells
Of the rhyming and the chiming of the bells

Hear the loud alarm bells
Brazen bells
What a tale of terror now
Their turbulency tells

Much too horrified to speak
Oh, they can only shriek
For all the ears to know
How the danger ebbs and flows

Leaping higher, higher, higher
With a desperate desire
In a clamorous appealing
To the mercy of the fire

With the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells
With 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
For all the sound that floats
From the rust within our throats
And the people sit and groan
In their muffled monotone

And the tolling, tolling, tolling
Feels a glory in the rolling
From the throbbing and the sobbing
Of the melancholy bells

Oh, the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells
Oh, the moaning and the groaning of the bells