The Washington herald., 1911-01-01

tional lines. He next copied out the poem
and headed 1t BY Mrs. NJ. L. Shew, re-
marking that II was her poem, as she had
suggested and composed so much of it.
Such was the germ of this remarkable
poem which melodiously mimics. in verbal
and metrical harmonics. SO narvelously
the respective metallic tones-silver. gold
en-, brazen, and iron Of sleigh-bells, we'd
ding bells. steeple bells. and alarm bells.
The poem went through no less than
three transformations, however, before It
reached the public in the final form pub
lished in Sartain's Union Magazine. In
November, 1S49. one month after Poe's
death. In a note accompanying the poem
in this magazine Mr.. Sartain gave the
following account Of its evolution:
There is a curious piece Of literary
history connected with this poem. 1t il
lustrates the gradual development Of an
idea in the mind of a man Of original
genius. This poem came into our posses
sion about year since consequently
about December 1S4S. 1t then consisted
of seventeen lines. About six months
afterward We received the poem enlarged
and altered nearly to its present size and
form, and about three months since the
author sent another alteration and en-
largement, in which condition the poem
was left at the time of his DEATH
The original version, containing only
! seventeen lines, divided into two stanzas.
! was as follows:
; THE BELLs"-A SONG.
The bells, Hear the bells!
The merry wedding bells.
The little silver bells!
How farly-lke . melody thefe dveIb
| From the silver tinkling cells
! OF the bells
The bells. All. the bells!
The heavy iron bells.
Hear the tolling Of the bells!
Hear the knelki
| How horrible a monody there hoats
1 From their throatS-
From their deep-toDed throatsi
How I shudder at their notes
From the melancholy thruats
J OF the bells. bells. bells!
| OF the BELLS
| Poe's enemies have charged that he
| sold the poem three times over to diff
ferent magazines. The charge Is entirely
false, but Mr.. Sartain explains that it
was he who paid Poe three times for
three versions Of 'The Bells himself in
sisting on SO doing. because the poems
were substantially distince pieces. I'm the
form he first submitted it, says Mr..
Sartain IN his "reminiscences, ''consistins
of seventeen lines Of small merit, he re-
ceived SIS. but after he had rewritten and
improved it to 113 lines. he was paid so
more"
| The poet, it will be remembered, lost
his wife, Virginia Clemm. on January so.
ISf7. Thereafter he was as one distraught.
deprived of the companionship and SYM
pathy of his child wife, writes Mr.. w.
r. Gill. a friendly biographer. the poet
suffered what was to him the agony of
utter loneliness. Night after night he
would arise from his sleepless pillow
and, dressing himself, wander to
the grave Of his lost one. and. throwing
himself down on the cold ground. weep
bitterly for hours at a time. He found it
impossible to sleep without the presence
of some friend by his bedside. For a long
time after Virginia's death he seems to
have been desperately i'll and unnerved.
To deaden his grief he had recourse to
liquor and drugs.
Sick as he was, necessity forced min
to take UP his pen, and 1t was during
these last years that he wrote his prose
, poem OF Eureka and lyrics like ''Ula-
lume,' "Annabel Lee" and The Bells. "
1t was Mrs. Shew, already mentioned
. who proved Poe's truest friend and bene-
factor in this period Of abject misery
She had done what she could by personal
ministration and by raising subscriptions
e from his friends to soothe the last days
. of the dying wife, to secure her decent
burial, and to rescue Poe from the pecu
mary difficulties in which the long sick
: mess of his wife plunged him.