In the silence of the night how we shiver with affright By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells From the rust within their throats for every sound that floats In the silence all alone Switching time time In a sort of runic rhyme To the tolling of the bells Iron bells To the tolling of the bells Keeping time time To the moaning and the groaning In a sort of runic rhyme Hear the tolling of the bells Iron bells What a world of solemn thought their monody compels 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 goals And it is their king who tolls