Bells small and great

Listen! Sleds rushing past in a row,
Rushing past in a row!
Their tiny bells ringing,
Their easy, silvery peal falls on our ears like ambrosia,
Their humming and pinging whisper of oblivion.
O how clearly, clearly, clearly --
Indeed, with sonorous childlike laughter --
In the clear night air
They tell the tale,
Of how deception and delusion
Will be followed by renewal
And that enchanting delight -- delightful, tender sleep.
Sleds rushing, rushing past in a row,
Their tiny bells ringing,
Stars hear how the escaping sleds whisper,
And, following them, glow,
And dream, and shine, in the sky hovering;
And their fickle light
Silently enchanting,
Together with the ringing, together with the singing, tell of oblivion.

Listen to the golden wedding bell's holy call,

What tender bliss is in that youthful song!
Through the calm night air
They appear like someone's eyes
Gleaming,
And through surging waves of melodious notes, gazing at the moon.
From open, inviting belfries
Of enchanting delight,
Rising, falling, soar sparks of light,
Once more dim, once more gleaming,
They cast a brilliant light
Upon future ages where tender dreams slumber in peaceful sleep,
Announced by the golden harmony of golden bells.

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.

Hear the funeral bell ring;
Long does it ring!
Bitter sorrow in audible pitches, a bitter life ending in slumber.
An iron note announces the funereal melancholy.
And against our wills we shiver,
Hastening from the strange entertainment
And weep, remembering that our own eyes shall be shut.
Persistent and monotonous,
That distant cry
Of the funeral bell's leaden pealing,
Indeed groaning,
Sorrowful, angry,
And lamentable,
Swelling and rumbling long,
Announcing that the sufferer sleeps in wakeless slumber.
In the bell's rusty belfry
On behalf of the righteous and the wicked
It menacingly echoes:
That the soul is entombed in stone, that the eyes are shuttered in sleep.
The mourning torch blazes;
With the bells someone is shouting, someone loudly announces.
A dark figure stands there,
And roars with laughter, and growls,
And screams, screams, screams;
Leaning against the belfry,
he swings the sonorous bell.
The sonorous bell sobs,
Groaning in the silent air
And slowly announcing the coffin's peace.