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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!

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

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10

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 rime,
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.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biography. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was one of the great American poets and short-story writers. Born in Boston, he was left an orphan at an early age, and was adopted by a wealthy citizen of Richmond. Poe went to school in London, attended the University of Virginia, and the military academy at West Point, but he could not settle down to a normal, orderly life. Later he began to publish poems and tales, contribute to newspapers and magazines, and do editorial work. He was too erratic in his habits to retain long either positions or friends. His writings are weird and mysterious, and his poetry is perhaps the most purely musical of any in our language. His prose tales of mystery and adventure have served as models for many well-known writers. Poe was the originator of the modern short story.

Poe's troubled life ended at Baltimore, Maryland, in the fortieth year of his age. The pathos of it is well summed up in the inscription on a memorial tablet erected to him in the New York Museum of Art: "He was great in his genius, unhappy in his life, wretched in his death, but in his fame, immortal."

Note. Poe's poetry makes its appeal to the sense of beauty. In this poem he seeks to reproduce the sound of different kinds of bells. To do this he uses all the devices of the poet, such as rhythm, repetition, alliteration, etc. Aptly enough he speaks of sleigh bells as "jingling and tinkling,” wedding-bells as "swinging and ringing," fire bells as "jangling and wrangling," and tolling bells as "moaning and groaning." These musical qualities claim our attention in reading the poem. Poe intended that we should find pleasure in the beauty and melody of his verse.

Discussion. 1. Why does Poe describe the bells in the order given in the poem? 2. Have you ever heard fire bells that scream in terror as the bells did that Poe heard? If you have not heard such bells, can you explain why you have not? 3. What does the poet describe as "leaping higher, higher, higher"? 4. When are bells tolled? 5. By whom does the poet imagine the steeple is inhabited? Is this a pleasant thought? By whom would you like to imagine the steeple inhabited? 6. The poet imagines that the sounds which mean sorrow to human beings have a different meaning for the fiends; find lines that tell what the tolling means to them. 7. Which bells do you like best of those described by the poet? 8. Which lines do you like best? 9. Which are most musical? Compare the devices for musical effects used in this poem with those used in "The Bugle Song." 10. Has the reading of this poem given you pleasure? Try to give reasons for your answers. 11. Library reading: “Annabel Lee," Poe. 12. Find in the Glossary the meaning of: Runic; euphony; voluminously; impels; turbulency; clamorous; expostulation; palpitating; monody; Ghouls. 13. Pronounce: crystalline; balmy; melancholy; pæan.

10

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main -

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings Б In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;

Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

And every chambered cell,

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,

Before thee lies revealed

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

He left the past year's dwelling for the new,

Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

10

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap, forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born

Than ever Triton blew from wreathéd horn!

While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:

15 Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll!

20

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biography. Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of a Congregational minister. He attended Phillips Andover Academy and was graduated from Harvard College in 1829. After studying medicine and anatomy in Paris, he began practicing in Boston. He was made professor of anatomy and physiology at Dartmouth College and later held a similar position at Harvard. He became known as a poet through his poem, Old Ironsides, which he wrote as a protest against the dismantling of the historic battleship, Constitution.

When Lowell was offered the editorship of the Atlantic Monthly he made it a condition of his acceptance that Holmes should be a contributor. The result was a series of articles entitled The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. Among his poems, the best known are "The Chambered Nautilus," and "The Deacon's Masterpiece."

Note. "The Chambered Nautilus" appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1858. The poet makes the "wrecked" shell that lies before him a symbol of life. The nautilus builds each year a new and larger cell or compartment, into which it moves, closing up the cell that it previously occupied. If you have seen a nautilus shell you will understand how well it symbolizes progress and growth, and how well the poet has described both the form and the color of the shell.

Discussion. 1. In what stanzas does the poet talk to us about the nautilus? 2. In what stanza does he address the shell? 3. Which stanza tells the message brought by the shell? 4. Why was it necessary for the poet to tell us the history of the shell before he interpreted its message? 5. What made it possible for the poet to hear the message brought by the shell? 6. Does this help you understand what kind of boy Oliver Wendell Holmes must have been? 7. To what old belief concerning the nautilus does the poet refer in the first stanza? 8. What things mentioned show that the poet is thinking of the warm waters in which the nautilus lives? 9. Do you like the use of the word "wrecked" in connection with the nautilus? Why? 10. Who was the "frail tenant"? 11. What does the broken shell reveal? 12. Read lines from the third stanza which tell how the cells are formed and why they were "sunless" as long as the shell was unbroken? 13. How may the soul build more lofty mansions? What thoughts will help? What actions will help? 14. What does the poet mean by the "outgrown shell" of the soul? 15. Find in the Glossary the meaning of: siren; irised; rent; crypt; lustrous; Triton. 16. Pronounce: coral;

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1. A description of the chambered nautilus. 2. What the shell told me.

3. A legend of the sea. 4. A walk on the seashore.

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