“I must write a poem,” said he, “and I haven’t an idea in my head.  For some reason the bells seem frightfully out of tune this morning, and nearly drive me distracted.”

After he had been chatting with Mrs. Shaw for some time, he evidently felt in better mood, and the sound of the bells grew more musical; or perhaps their actual sound had stopped and his imagination suggested bells that were indeed musical.

As he kept on complaining about his inability to write a poem, Mrs. Shaw placed pen and ink and paper before him, first writing at the top of a sheet the title, “The Bells, by E. A. Poe.”  Underneath she wrote, “The bells, the little silver bells.”  Poe caught the idea, and immediately wrote the first draft of the following stanza.  According to his habit he rewrote this poem many, many times.  The original stanza began with the words Mrs. Shaw had written.  Here are the verses as they may now be read in Poe’s works: 

  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 heaven, 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 tinkling of the bells.

Mrs. Shaw then wrote the words, “The heavy iron bells.”  Poe immediately completed the stanza which now reads: 

        Hear the tolling of the bells,—­
          Iron bells! 
  What a world of solemn thought their monody compels! 
        In the silence of the night,
        How we shiver with affright
     At the melancholy menace of their tone! 
        For every sound that floats
        From the rust within their throats
          Is a groan. 
        And the people—­ah, the people—­
        They that dwell up in the steeple,
          All alone,
        And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
          In that muffled monotone,
        Feel a glory in so rolling
          On the human heart a stone! 
        They are neither man nor woman,—­
        They are neither brute nor human,—­
          They are Ghouls;
        And their king it is who tolls,—­
        And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
        Rolls a paean from the bells! 
        And his merry bosom swells
        With the paean of the bells! 
        And he dances, and he yells,
          Keeping time, time, time,
        In a sort of Runic rhyme,
        To the paean of the bells,
          Of the bells.

The other stanzas were written afterward.  There is music in these words; but do not think that the music is all.  Underneath is the deep harmony of human suggestion, as in the lines,