And thus with the shadows only,
And the dreamings they unweave,
Alone, and yet not lonely,
I keep my Christmas eve.
'Tis passing fast!
My fireless, lampless room
Is a mass of moveless gloom;
And without -- a darkness vast,
Solemn -- starless -- still!
Heaven and earth doth fill.
But list! there soundeth a bell,
With a mystical ding, dong, dell!
Is it, say, is it a funeral knell?
Solemn and slow,
Now loud -- now low;
Pealing the notes of human woe
Over the graves lying under the snow!
Ah! that pitiless ding, dong, dell!
Trembling along the gale,
Under the stars and over the snow.
Why is it? whence is it sounding so?
Is it a toll of a burial bell?
Or is it a spirit's wail?
Solemnly, mournfully,
Sad -- and how lornfully!
Ding, dong, dell!
Whence is it? who can tell?
And the marvelous notes they sink and swell,
Sadder, and sadder, and sadder still!
How the sounds tremble! how they thrill!
Every tone
So like a moan;
As if the strange bell's stranger clang
Throbbed with a terrible human pang.
Ding, dong, dell!
Dismally, drearily,
Ever so wearily.
Far off and faint as a requiem plaint
Floats the deep-toned voice of the mystic bell
Piercingly -- thrillingly,
Icily -- chillingly,
Near -- and more near,
Drearer -- and more drear,
Soundeth the wild, weird, ding, dong, dell!
Now sinking lower,
It tolleth slower!
I list, and I hear its sound no more.
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