I hear the loud alarm bells
What a dread their sound fortells
Through the chilly air of night
In a deaf and frantic fire
With a desperate desire
The flames are leaping higher

What a world of solemn thought their monody compels tonight
How we shiver with affright

I hear them sledges with the bells
How they clang and clash and roar
What a horror they outpour
In a mad expostulation
With the deaf and frantic fire
Leaping higher, higher, higher

What a world of solemn thought their monody compels tonight
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of the tone he dance and yells
To the peaen of the bells