University of Virginia Library

Search this document 
Leaves of Grass :[1891]

Including Sands at Seventy...1st Annex, Good-Bye my Fancy...2d Annex, A Backward Glance o'er Travel'd Roads, and Portrait from Life

collapse section 
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 
  
  
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 
  
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 
collapse section 
  
  
  
  
expand section 
  
  
  
expand section 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
expand section 
  
expand section 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
expand section 
expand section 
  
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 
  
expand section 
  
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 
  
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 

THE SOBBING OF THE BELLS.

(Midnight, Sept. 19–20, 1881.)
The sobbing of the bells, the sudden death-news everywhere,
The slumberers rouse, the rapport of the People,
(Full well they know that message in the darkness,
Full well return, respond within their breasts, their brains, the sad reverberations,)
The passionate toll and clang—city to city, joining, sounding, passing,
Those heart-beats of a Nation in the night.