Straight No Chaser

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"here 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 heavens, 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.

hear the mellow wedding-bells,
golden bells!
what a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
through the balmy air of night
how they ring out their delight
from the molten-golden notes!
and all in tune
what a liquid ditty floats
to the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
on the moon!
oh, from out the sounding cells,
what a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
how it swells!
how it dwells
on the future! how it tells
of rapture that impels
to the swinging and the ringing
of the bells, bells, bells--
of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
bells, bells, bells--
to the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!..."

(the first two stanzas of "the bells," my second favorite edgar allan poe-m.)

i got a private, superemotive reading of this over the phone last night. besides the fact that i can only imagine what "tintinnabulation" denotes, i really love this poem, and will probably love it twice as much now.

a lot of other good things happened yesterday; most memorably, a gush of euphony. i've got a mental catalog of imagines, lines, memories and concepts that invariably give me shivers; add to that:

"what a gush of euphony voluminously wells!"

what a gush of euphony voluminously wells. one day i'm going to figure out how to do that, string words together with such melodic precision that somebody somewhere is actually able to conceptualize something so abstract.

there are about five different, specific, everyday words that could title this post. rather than pick one (so limiting), i decided to keep it vague all around. hangman, anyone?