the toiling bell

The Tolling Bell

Through the night, a bell was tolling, with a sound so dark and rolling,
Echoing from depths unknown, where no soul dared to implore.
Each deep chime, a call to sorrow, with no hope for bright tomorrow,
Filling all the hearts with horror, freezing blood forevermore—
For the bell, in cold insistence, marked the hour forevermore—
Death had come, and nothing more.

I stood fast in haunted dreaming, yet I felt the shadows gleaming,
Filling all my senses, teeming with the dread that shook my core.
Still that bell, with hollow thunder, seemed to pull me, pull me under,
Like a spell to tear asunder all the peace I’d known before—
Drawing forth the final breath from hearts that beat no more—
Only death, and nothing more.

Down the lane, I saw it rising—'neath the moon it stood, surprising—
A tower, cold and grim, comprising all the fears that life must store.
And the bell, with doom still swinging, sent its mournful cadence ringing,
Till my soul could hear it singing of the end that’s at my door—
For the toll that marks the hours will cease when I’m no more—
Silence then, forevermore.