Bells
From far away! from far away!But whence, you will not say:Melancholy bells, appealing chimes,Voices of lands and times!
Your toll, O melancholy bells!Over the valley swells:O touching chimes! your dying sighsTravel our tranquil skies.
But whence? And whither fade awayYour echoes from our day?You take our hearts with gentle pain,Tremble, and pass again.
Could we lay hold upon your haunts,The birthplace of your chaunts:Were we in dreamland, deathland, then?We, sad and wondering men?
Words in this poem
- appealing a.
- That appeals; imploring.
- whither adv.
- To what place; -- used interrogatively; as, whither goest thou [OE. whider. AS. hwider; akin to E. where, who; cf. Goth. hvadre whither. See Who, and cf. Hither, Thither.]
- birthplace n.
- The town, city, or country, where a person is born; place of origin or birth, in its more general sense.
- dreamland n.
- An unreal, delightful country such as in sometimes pictured in dreams; region of fancies; fairyland.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Bells is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #66520; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Lionel Johnson, Bells, in Poems (1895), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66520, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/johnson-lionel-poems/bells.html, id L12557.
Form and metre
Bells is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%).
See other poems in common measure.
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 awayA · sayA · chimesB · timesB
- 2 AABB bellsA · swellsA · sighsB · skiesB
- 3 AABB awayA · dayA · painB · againB
- 4 AABB hauntsA · chauntsA · thenB · menB
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| From far away! from far away! | 8 | ··˘/··˘/ |
| But whence, you will not say: | 6 | ······ |
| Melancholy bells, appealing chimes, | 9 | /˘·˘·˘/˘· |
| Voices of lands and times! | 6 | /˘···· |
| Your toll, O melancholy bells! | 8 | ···/˘·˘· |
| Over the valley swells: | 6 | ···/˘· |
| O touching chimes! your dying sighs | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Travel our tranquil skies. | 7 | /˘/˘/˘· |
| But whence? And whither fade away | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Your echoes from our day? | 7 | ·/˘·/˘· |
| You take our hearts with gentle pain, | 8 | ··/··/˘· |
| Tremble, and pass again. | 6 | /˘··˘/ |
| Could we lay hold upon your haunts, | 8 | ········ |
| The birthplace of your chaunts: | 6 | ·/···· |
| Were we in dreamland, deathland, then? | 8 | ···/···· |
| We, sad and wondering men? | 7 | ···/˘˘· |
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.