Those Evening Bells
Those evening bells, those evening bells,How many a tale their music tells,--Of Yorkshire cakes and crumpets prime,And letters only just in time!
The Muffin-boy has passed away,The Postman gone--and I must pay,For down below Deaf Mary dwells,And does not hear those Evening Bells.
And so 'twill be when she is gone,That tuneful peal will still ring on,And other maids with timely yellsForget to stay those Evening Bells.
Words in this poem
- muffin n.
- A light, spongy, cylindrical cake, used for breakfast and tea. [From Muff.]
- postman n.
- A post or courier; a letter carrier.
- tuneful a.
- Harmonious; melodious; musical; as, tuneful notes.
- peal v. i.
- To appeal. Spencer.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Those Evening Bells is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood, Project Gutenberg ebook #15652; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Thomas Hood, Those Evening Bells, in The Song of the Shirt, and Other Poems (1826–1845), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15652, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hood-poetical-works/those-evening-bells.html, id L20201.
Form and metre
Those Evening Bells is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 97%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABB bellsA · tellsA · primeB · timeB
- 2 AABB awayA · payA · dwellsB · bellsB
- 3 AABB goneA · onA · yellsB · bellsB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Those evening bells, those evening bells, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| How many a tale their music tells,-- | 8 | ·/···/˘· |
| Of Yorkshire cakes and crumpets prime, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And letters only just in time! | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| The Muffin-boy has passed away, | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| The Postman gone--and I must pay, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| For down below Deaf Mary dwells, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And does not hear those Evening Bells. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And so 'twill be when she is gone, | 8 | ········ |
| That tuneful peal will still ring on, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And other maids with timely yells | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Forget to stay those Evening Bells. | 8 | ˘/···/˘· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.