Christmas Penny Readings: Original Sketches for the Season

“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”
Roaring through my chamber portal,
Borne thro’ window, borne thro’ ceiling
Ever to my sense revealing,
Still the bells these words were pealing,
“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”
“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”
Till my room seemed filled with bells that rang the self-same strain;
While, above the brazen roaring,
Mightily the first tone pouring,
Boomed out “Soul!” in mighty pow’r, and linked in with the chain.

Then an unseen presence o’er me
Leant, and from my chamber tore me:
Out upon the night-wind I was swept among the sounds,
Whirling on amid the pealing,
Warning to the city dealing
Of the coming morrow, in reverberating rounds.

Still they cried, as from doom’s portal,
“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”
Shrieking all around me as I floated with the wind,
Ever borne away and crying,
Every bell-tone swiftly flying
O’er the silent city, to its slumber now consigned.

Hurried round each airy tower,
Writhing with the unseen power
Vainly, for a spirit-chain each struggling limb would bind;
Doomed to hear those words repelling,
Ever on my senses knelling,
Still – a booming hurricane —
we wrestled with the wind.

Sweeping o’er the sluggish river,
Where dark piles the waves dissever,
’Neath the bridges, by the shipping,
Sluice-gates, with the waters dripping,
By the rustling, moaning rushes,
Where the tribute-water gushes;
Forced to gaze on ghastly faces,
Where the dread one left his traces,
Faces of the suicide, the murdered floated on,
Whose blue, leaden lips, unclosing,
Shrieked out words, my brain that froze in,
Crying I had stayed my help in hours long passed and gone.

“Hopeless, hopeless!” ever crying,
“Hopeless we are round you dying,
Asking vainly for the aid withheld in selfish grasp;
Hopeless, from the crime that’s breeding,
Ever to new horrors leading,
Horrors, growing, flow’ring, seeding,
Soon to spread a poison round more deadly than the asp.”

Still an unseen presence bound me;
Still the bells were shrieking round me,
“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”
“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”
Rising, falling, ever calling,
Thought and mem’ry, soul appalling,
Borne away and louder crying,
In the distance softly dying;
Here in gentle murmurs sighing,
Then again far higher flying,
Swiftly o’er the houses hieing;
While around these fear-begetters
Bound me in their brazen fetters.
On I sped with brain on fire,
’Mid the bell-tones, higher, higher,
List’ning to their words upbraiding,
Each with dread my soul new lading.
Now away, the mighty chorus
Swept around a church before us,
In whose yard were paupers lying.
From their graves I heard them crying,
Joining in the words upbraiding,
Loudly piercing, softly fading:
“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”
“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”
“Cease your murmurs, cease your sorrow,
From our fate a lesson borrow:
Never heeded, lost to pity,
Dying round you through the city.
Leave us to our peaceful sleeping,
Freed from hunger, care, and weeping.”

O’er and o’er the hillocks grassy,
Now away o’er buildings massy:
Ever cries, as from doom’s portal,
“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”
Thro’ the wards where pain was shrieking,
Where disease was vengeance wreaking,
Still the sounds were hurrying, crying,
As in emulation trying;
Many a fev’rish slumber breaking;
O’er the lips that knew no slaking.
All were crying, help imploring;
While the bells from roof to flooring,
Still, as from the first beginning,