|
|
| Home Just In Communities Forums Beta Readers Dictionary Search | Login Register Extras |
--Bells would began to ring, deep funeral bells, whilst the screen still was black, the scene would open upon a bell tower then, the bells inside it ringing out into the still air of the night, black, as a choir began to sing:--
“Hear 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.”
--The scene moved down the bell tower and past the dark-looking church it was atop, to see a black clad man carrying his black-clad wife across the doors of the church as blackened rice rains from above, thrown by similarly clad spectators to this midnight wedding, as still the choir continued:--
“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 the
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!”
--As the group of people for the wedding carry on silently, and the bells continue tolling from above them, there is an explosion from inside the church, and black flames emit from every orifice of the building, engulfing the group there for the wedding, except for the bride, whom the groom throws as far as he is able and out of the way of the sable flames, as the choir continues on in a deeper, more threatening tone:--
Hear the loud alarum
bells -
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their
turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream
out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only
shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the
mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and
frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate
desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now -now to sit or never,
By
the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What
a tale their terror tells
Of despair!
How they clang, and
clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the
palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the
twanging
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet
the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling
And the
wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or
the swelling in the anger of the bells -
Of the bells,
Of the
bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
In the
clamor and the clangor of the bells!
--During the course of the singing, help arrives, for the lady, dressed in black, and the camera fades out upon the rising sun.--
--It is at some point later, and daytime, and the lady from the wedding scene stands in front of her husband’s grave, wearing white amid a crowd of dark-clad mourners, crying softly, her dark make up smearing in tears down her face, as she drops a rose down into her lover’s grave as the choir, now sad and lamenting, continues:--
”Hear the tolling
of the bells -
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought
their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we
shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For
every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a
groan.
And the people -ah, the people -
They that dwell up in
the steeple,
All alone,
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 Ghouls:
And their king it
is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from
the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the
bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time,
time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells,
Of
the bells -
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.”
--The camera would zoom in, then, upon the rose as the scene would slowly fade to black.--
--THE END--