Hear the sledges with the bells,
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
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Hear the sledges with the bells,
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night,
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the Heavens seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells--
From the jingling and the tingling of the bells.

Those evening bells! those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells!

Those evening bells! those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells!

Ring out, will bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light.

Ring out, will bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light.

Dear bells! how sweet the sound of village bells
When on the undulating air they swim!

Dear bells! how sweet the sound of village bells
When on the undulating air they swim!

Your voices break and falter in the darkness,--
Break, falter, and are still.

Your voices break and falter in the darkness,--
Break, falter, and are still.

The bells themselves are the best of preachers,
Their brazen lips are learned teachers,
From their pulpits read more

The bells themselves are the best of preachers,
Their brazen lips are learned teachers,
From their pulpits of stone, in the upper air,
Sounding aloft, without crack or flaw,
Shriller than trumpets under the Law,
Now a sermon and now a prayer.

Seize the loud, vociferous fells, and
Clashing, clanging to the pavement
Hurl them from their windy tower!

Seize the loud, vociferous fells, and
Clashing, clanging to the pavement
Hurl them from their windy tower!

I call the Living--I mourn the Dead--
I break the Lightning.

I call the Living--I mourn the Dead--
I break the Lightning.

With deep affection
And recollection
I often think of
Those Shandon bells,
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With deep affection
And recollection
I often think of
Those Shandon bells,
Whose sounds so wild would,
In the days of childhood,
Fling round my cradle
Their magic spells.