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They are neither brute nor human -
They are ghouls:

And their king it is who tolls;

And he rolls, rolls, rolls,

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Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the throbbing of the bells —
Of the bells, bells, bells —

To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells —
Of the bells, bells, bells

To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells -
Bells, bells, bells—

To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

crystalline like crystal. - Runic: the Norsemen had an alphabet of sixteen letters, each of which was called a rune. The word probably meant a mystery, as only a few knew these letters. tintinnabulation: a tinkling sound. —ditty: a song. — euphony: a pleasant sound. - alarum: alarm. — turbulency: disorder. expostulation: earnest reasoning against a thing or course of action. palpitating throbbing. — monody: a song for one voice, generally a mournful song. menace: threat. monotone :

a single note. ghoul: an imaginary demon. and joyous song.

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-pæan: a loud

POE'S COTTAGE AT FORDHAM

JOHN HENRY BONER

JOHN HENRY BONER (1845-1903), an American poet, was born in Salem, North Carolina. After receiving an academic education, he edited papers in Salem and in Asheville. He was reading clerk of the North Carolina Constitutional Convention in 1868, and chief clerk of the North Carolina House of Repre- 5 sentatives in 1869-1870. In 1887 he moved to New York. There he was on the staff of the Century Dictionary, the Library of American Literature, and the Standard Dictionary. He was also literary editor of the New York World and of the Literary Digest. The last years of his life were spent in the civil service in Washington. 10 Some of his poems have already taken their places in our best anthologies and, more significant than this, in the hearts of the people.

- HENRY JEROME STOCKARD.

Here lived the soul enchanted

By melody of song;

Here dwelt the spirit haunted

By a demoniac throng;
Here sang the lips elated;

Here grief and death were sated;
Here loved and here unmated
Was he, so frail, so strong.

Here wintry winds and cheerless
The dying firelight blew

While he whose song was peerless

Dreamed the drear midnight through,

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And from dull embers chilling
Crept shadows darkly filling
The silent place, and thrilling
His fancy as they grew.

Here, with brow bared to heaven,
In starry night he stood,
With the lost star of seven
Feeling sad brotherhood.
Here in the sobbing showers
Of dark autumnal hours

He heard suspected powers

Shriek through the stormy wood.

From visions of Apollo

And of Astarte's bliss,

He gazed into the hollow

And hopeless vale of Dis;

And though earth were surrounded
By heaven, it still was mounded
With graves. His soul had sounded
The dolorous abyss.

Proud, mad, but not defiant,

He touched at heaven and hell.

Fate found a rare soul pliant

And rung her changes well.

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:

Alternately his lyre,

Stranded with strings of fire,
Led earth's most happy choir

Or flashed with Israfel.

No singer of old story

Luting accustomed lays,
No harper for new glory,

No mendicant for praise,

He struck high chords and splendid,
Wherein were fiercely blended

Tones that unfinished ended
With his unfinished days.

Here through this lowly portal,
Made sacred by his name,
Unheralded immortal

The mortal went and came.

And fate that then denied him,
And envy that decried him,

And malice that belied him,

Have cenotaphed his fame.

Apollo a Grecian god particularly interested in music and poetry. — Astarte a goddess of love and beauty. — Dis: another name for Pluto, the god of the lower world. — dolorous: sorrowful. abyss: a bottomless pit. — Israfel: the angel of music; also the name of one of Poe's poems. mendicant beggar. cenotaphed made into a monument.

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