396 OUTSIDE THE ALE-HOUSE. But drink has stolen your strength, John, You'll not go in to-night! You'll not go in! Think on the day Of how your steady earnings, John, Then don't go in to-night! To see us, John, as then we dressed, As we went down the street. Ah, little thought our neighbors then, That ever, John, to rags like these And will you go? If not for me, Has passed my lips to-day; And tell your father, little one, "Tis mine your life hangs on- Come home with us to-night! THE BELLS. HEA THE BELLS. EAR the sledges with the bells- What a world of merriment their melody foretells! In the icy air of night! In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the tintinuabulation that so musically wells From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells. Hear the mellow wedding-bells-- What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats Oh, from out the sounding cells, What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! How it dwells On the future! how it tells Of the rapture that impels To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells! 397 398 THE BELLS. Hear the loud alarum bells Brazen bells! What a tale of terror now their turbulency tells! How they scream out their affright! In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, And a resolute endeavor, By the side of the paled-faced moon. What a tale their terror tells Of Despair! How they clang, and clash, and roar! 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 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! THE BELLS. 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, And who, tolling, tolling, tolling, Feel a glory in so rolling On the human heart a stone- And their king it is who tolls; With the pean of the bells! To the pean of the bells- Keeping time, time, time, To the throbbing of the bells— Of the bells, bells, bells, To the sobbing of the bells; As he knells, knells, knells, In a happy Runic rhyme, To the rolling of the 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. 399 400 THE WHISTLER. THE WHISTLER. "YOU have heard," said a youth to his sweetheart, who stood, While he sat on a corn-sheaf, at daylight's decline "You have heard of the Danish boy's whistle of wood; I wish that Danish boy's whistle was mine." "And what would you do with it? Tell me," she said, "Is that all that you wish for? That may be yours "I would blow it again," said the youth, "and the charm Would work so that not even modesty's check Would be able to keep from my neck your fine arm." She smiled, as she laid her fair arm 'round his neck. "Yet once more would I blow, and the magic divine, The maiden laughed out in her innocent glee "What a fool of yourself with the whistle you'd make; For only consider how silly 'twould be, To sit there and whistle for what you might take." |