Hear the howling warning bell,
The very groaning bronze of hell!
These pitches declaim a horrific tale of torment.
Indeed they plead for help,
Cries sent out in the night.
Straight in the gloomy night
Every note,
This one longer, that one shorter
Cries out its own fright --
And great is their fright,
So insane are their cries,
That their tattered ringing, their insufficient sound
can only struggle, twist, and cry, cry, cry!
Only weep for mercy
And to the giant flames
Direct their doleful wails!
But the brutal flames,
Uncaring and raucous,
Still burn.
Their light, on the rooftops,
Speeds upward, upward, upward,
As if it were saying:
I want
To rush upward, to blaze, to touch the gleaming moonbeams.
I will die, or fly up now, now to the moon!
O alarm bell, alarm bell, alarm bell
If only you would take back
That terror, those flames, that spark -- that glimpse,
That first glimpse of the fire
Which you proclaim with weeping, with wailing and with chimes!
Now there is no redemption,
Everywhere there is the lick of flames,
Everywhere there is fear and indignation.
Your call,
These savage, dissonant tones,
Announce our peril.
In wild mischief they ebb and flow like a tide!
Our ears clearly catch the ever-changing sound of the waves,
Now ebbing, now sobbing, in the brazen, groaning surf.