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		Middlebury's Bells / the Carillonneurs / Visiting Us

Breathing, Speaking, Ceasing Not:
Examining "The Bells" of Poe

Edgar Allen Poe's haunting and delightful poem "The Bells" (1) captures one's interest not only due to its subject matter-- his masterful application of the metaphor of different types of bells representing the various stages of human life-- but also due to its inspirational source. In the early summer of 1848, while visiting a friend in New York, Poe became obsessed with the desire to compose a poem, but had no idea on what subject he should write. This stoppage of creative energy and inspiration annoyed Poe and the sound of nearby church bells served only to exacerbate the situation by further distracting him from productive contemplation. His hostess, though, was determined to make the writer happy and took the cue of the church bells to inspire him: "She gave him paper and wrote on it 'The Bells, by E. A.. Poe'-- adding 'The little silver bells'... She then suggested 'The heavy Iron bells'." (2) Poe created the first version of "The Bells" on that afternoon. The poem is a magnificent tribute to the power of bells, the dynamic range of the instrument from simple and innocent to overbearing and complex; "The Bells" stands as a powerful testament to the inspirational power a peal of bells might wield over a poetic mind on a spring day.

Of course, describing the sounding bells as a peal is purely colloquial, for change ringing may not have been occurring in any form on the day when Poe first heard the bells. On that day when Mrs. M. L. Shew prompted Poe to write while she hosted him in her conservatory, the sound of the bells might have been a signal for alarm, for it was customary to toll all neighboring bells in the event of fire.(3) Such a hypothesis is sensible, especially when one considers Poe's first draft of "The Bells," a nineteen line poem divided into two stanzas. The first stanza captures the beauty of the bells:

The little silver bells!
How fairy-like a melody there floats
From there throats."(4)

Poe clearly finds himself willing to play Mrs. Shew's game and embrace the bells as things of beauty, beings with "merry little throats," "silver, tinkling throats"; he personifies the bells as singers resounding in a fairy-like chorus. If bells are ringing in alarm, though, only the most stalwart bell aficionado will regard them as a fairy chorus for long, a description that Poe abandons in the poem's second and final stanza.

The original version of "The Bells" concludes with a more somber view of the bells than that of the description with which it began:

The heavy iron bells!
How horrible a monody there floats
From their throats

The bells now are monotonous and not at all pleasant, for "monody" replaces the "melody" of the previous stanza. Poe now finds the bells to have "melancholy" and "deep-toned" throats, a clear reversal of the notion of fairy choirs. Such a shift in opinion supports the hypothesis of alarm bells being the inspiration for Poe's poem. After all, when one takes tea in the City at a friend's house, bells ringing from all the churches would be rather fun, but after twenty minutes or so the novelty would wear off. Supporting such a notion of the repetition of the sound as something altogether alarming to the poet, the second stanza contains one more line than the first: "How I shudder at the notes." It is in all likelihood that this is how "The Bells" was born; an energetic hostess assisted her friend in making the most of an afternoon with resounding alarm bells in the air.

The whole event, at the outset, appears to be a gross violation to the ego of carillonneurs the world over. To read the final, 112 line version of "The Bells" is to envisage a behemoth carillon witnessed during Poe's sojourn in France, an instrument of at least five octaves and a recital featuring a range of works from Handle to Schöenburg executed by a true octopus-of-a-carillonneur. Alas, there is no such wonderment behind the inspiration of "The Bells." Yet bells did have some sort of influence over Poe. It is difficult to divine exactly which set of bells was heard, for many probably were ringing and even if there were no sound of alarm to inspire, there are many bells near Mrs. Shew's residence. Without the slings of modern traffic, it would have been possible to hear the bells of numerous churches: St. Bartholomew's, St. Luke's, St. John's, St. Marks's in the Bowery, The Bleeker Street Presbyterian Church and Grace Church.(5) Thus, claiming the instruments of one special church or other institution as the source for Poe is nothing short of ludicrous, especially when one considers that he wrote and published the original poem and then lengthened it to five times its original size over a period of more than a year. Clearly, it is possible that Poe found himself exposed to many bells in over a year of travel. What is most important, though, is that bells were on his mind.

Interestingly enough, it was probably not only the inspirational prodding of Mrs. Shew and the chiming of nearby churches that drove Poe to write the final version of "The Bells." Poe had written a short story entitled "The Devil in the Belfry" that featured a bell being rung thirteen times, thus causing the possession of all timepieces:

The clocks carved upon the furniture took to dancing
as if bewitched, while those upon the mantelpieces could
scarcely contain themselves for fury, and kept such a
continual striking of thirteen and such a frisking and
wiggling of their pendulums as was really horrible to see.(6)

It is evident that the power of bells intrigued him; Romanticism tends to involve objects evoking powerful emotions. Le Vicomte de Châteaubriand, a Romantic Poet, examines a poem on Nôtre Dame and the mood that the sctructure evokes in his treatise Le Génie du Christianisme. The poem is entitled "La Chartreuse de Paris" and, as Châteaubriand illustrates in the analogy of the Isthmus of Panama and the waters it offers on each side that "présentent aux méditations le double tableau du calme et de l'orage," it manages to capture the difold nature of the great cathedral; just as one body of water on the Isthmus is in a state of calm while the other features rage in agitated strength, so also does the religious monument speak simultaneously on two distinct levels.(7) The monument has the power to awe and inspire all with its presence: "le bruit les environne," for the sound or mood of the cathedral cannot help but envelop all who witness it.

The notion of churches, abbeys, monuments and bells as strongholds of a vast array of human emotions waiting to burst forth when contemplated is a fundamental tenet of Romanticism. Even Wordsworth, a Lake Poet who often did not win the critical approval of Poe, finds sustenance in moments and places:

While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years.(8)

Wordsworth's speaker contemplates an experience that happened five years previous to his penning of this poem while he rests situated a few miles above Tintern Abbey. There is a certain distance that does not seem to exist with the composition of "The Bells" and yet Poe worked on elaborating the poem for over a year, time enough for him to recollect his powerful emotions 'in tranquillity'. What separates the two poets on the notion of objects inspiring is that Poe is far bolder than Wordsworth. He actually embraces a diction that mimics his subject: "In 'The Bells' the sounds of the syllables, taken by themselves and in their context, are doubtless more important than the denotative meanings of the words."(9) The poem actually sounds like the tolling of bells
The poem's first section features silver bells:

What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!

The bells are innocent and pure, much like a child, for they

seem to twinkle
with a crystalline delight.

In fact, the vocabulary even mimics that of a child with the gloriously inventive word "tintinnabulation" being very much in the realm of the creative speech of youth. The silver bells of youth jingle and tinkle, music welling up from their very being in a crisp and pure fashion.

The second section of the piece features

mellow wedding bells--
Golden bells.

While the bells of callow youth tinkle and twinkle like astral points of light, the poem's speaker emphasizes an innate harmony in the second set of bells. They feature "a gush of euphony"; the golden bells sound in "molten-golden notes" and, as the speaker indicates, are "all in tune." The golden bells sound harmoniously and represent the newlywed years of life, an interpretation that finds stability in the image of the listening turtle-dove, a symbol of connubial bliss. It is "the swinging and the ringing" of the golden bells that assure rapture in the near future.

It is a rapture of short duration, though. The

loud alarum bells--
Brazen bells

call out in the night and their song is "a tale of terror"; the image of their peal being like a turbulent sea is striking. It is the brazen bells that represent age, discontentment with life and a certain fear of death. These bells shriek "out of tune" and contrast the golden bells, for their song is anything but harmonious: "How they clang, and clash, and roar!" They represent the wildness of a distended existence, of life itself as a "deaf and frantic fire." It is evocative of a five hour Schöenburg concert on the carillon and cannot help but be a cacophony of clamorous alarm.

This wildness ceases, though, as the poem's speaker moves on to describe yet another type of bell, the iron bells that ring in "muffled monotone." The iron bells are instruments of death:

They are neither brute nor human,
They are Ghouls.

Poe here employs the same personification that he did in his original version as the bells become entities of their own design, even harbingers from another world. The iron bells bespeak an existence of old age and pain:

every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.

These bells sound in a "throbbing" and "sobbing" chant rather than sing like a fairy chorus in "the icy air of night." What is most intriguing about this last cycle of bells is that someone tolls them; yet it appears that the bells control him more than anything else,

for his merry bosom swells
With the Pæan of the bells!
And he dances and he yells.

The bells have dominance over the ringer, an interesting notion indeed.

The bells sound and their king who tolls them lets them guide his own voice:

he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic Rhyme,
To the tolling of the bells.

He becomes a bell himself and joins in the chorus for the funeral knell, knelling like a bell with his dancing and yells. It is as if he bows in homage before the bells and relinquishes his sanity to them. The incredible repetition of these last lines draws the reader into the madness of the situation, of the might the bells wield over their ringer or perhaps even a bystander. Poe ends on a bleak, but incredibly powerful note; the listener supplicates himself to "the moaning and groaning of the bells," to the call to death.

Freudian critics have a field day with this piece, describing it as a poem "joining Hymen and Death," the result of Poe being unable to handle his platonic relationship with Mrs. Shew and the possibility that it might flourish into sexual passion.(10) He joins love and death together in a macabre fashion to handle the wildness of his desires. Unfortunately, such a narrow and silly reading of the poem denies it its greatness. One need only consult the first stanza of the final version again to realize all that Poe implies about the nature of bells:

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 tintinabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells--
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

The stars keep time to the bells; the astral beauties of the air supplicate themselves to and follow the rhythm of bells. This poem is Poe's grand tribute to the beauty of the bell. To discuss only hymens and death, clappers and the sexual shape of a bell is ludicrous. Much more is at stake in this poem, for Poe's speaker describes a world where bells are supreme, where the stars and even their king who tolls them follow their all-pervading song.

Proust had his Madelines and Wordsworth had his Lucy. It becomes apparent, at least to certain degree, that Poe had his bells; a single concept or action resonates for the poet on many levels and captures something of truth or at the very least the human condition. The glory of "The Bells" is that the reader might exult with Poe, that the language is powerful enough and the mood cathartic enough to draw the reader into the wildness of the situation. The poem's structure represents the emotions that bells evoke; the piece grows more repetitive, intense and musical as it progresses, causing Poe's speaker to, in effect, become a bell. What better testament can there be for the power of bells? One is left in awe as they resound over the landscape, breathing, speaking, ceasing not.

Notes
1 Poe, E. A., Collected Works of Edgar Allen Poe, Ed. Thomas Olive Mabbott, (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1969), 435.

Articles by Daniel Varholy '98
which have appeared in the GCNA newsletter, Carillon News:
May 1997:
"Breathing, Speaking, Ceasing Not: Examining 'The Bells' of Poe"

May 1998:
The Middlebury Guild's Spring Tour

2 Quin, Arthur Hobson, Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography, (New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1941), 563.

3 Poe, E. A., Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, 430.

4 Ibid., 434.

5 Ibid., 430.

6 Poe, E. A., Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe: Tales and Sketches 1831-1842, Ed. Thomas Olive Mabbott, (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1978), 373.

7 Châteaubriand, Œuvres Complètes de Châteaubriand,Vol.2, Ed. M. Sainte-Beuve, (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1927), 355.

8 Wordsworth, William, Selected Poems and Prefaces of William Wordsworth, Ed Jack Stillinger, (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1965), 109.

9 Stoval, Floyd, Edgar Allan Poe the Poet: Essays New and Old on the Man & His Work, (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1969), 232.

10 Bonaparte, Marie, The Life and Works of Edgar Allan Poe: A Psycho-Analytic Interpretation, (London: The Hogarth Press, 1971), 158.

Articles by Daniel Varholy '98
which have appeared in the GCNA newsletter, Carillon News:
May 1997:
"Breathing, Speaking, Ceasing Not: Examining 'The Bells' of Poe"

May 1998:
The Middlebury Guild's Spring Tour

Main Homepage


	Breathing, Speaking, Ceasing Not: Examining "The Bells" of Poe Edgar Allen Poe's haunting and delightful poem "The Bells" (1) captures one's interest not only due to its subject matter-- his masterful application of the metaphor of different types of bells representing the various stages of human life-- but also due to its inspirational source. In the early summer of 1848, while visiting a friend in New York, Poe became obsessed with the desire to compose a poem, but had no idea on what subject he should write. This stoppage of creative energy and inspiration annoyed Poe and the sound of nearby church bells served only to exacerbate the situation by further distracting him from productive contemplation. His hostess, though, was determined to make the writer happy and took the cue of the church bells to inspire him: "She gave him paper and wrote on it 'The Bells, by E. A.. Poe'-- adding 'The little silver bells'... She then suggested 'The heavy Iron bells'." (2) Poe created the first version of "The Bells" on that afternoon. The poem is a magnificent tribute to the power of bells, the dynamic range of the instrument from simple and innocent to overbearing and complex; "The Bells" stands as a powerful testament to the inspirational power a peal of bells might wield over a poetic mind on a spring day. Of course, describing the sounding bells as a peal is purely colloquial, for change ringing may not have been occurring in any form on the day when Poe first heard the bells. On that day when Mrs. M. L. Shew prompted Poe to write while she hosted him in her conservatory, the sound of the bells might have been a signal for alarm, for it was customary to toll all neighboring bells in the event of fire.(3) Such a hypothesis is sensible, especially when one considers Poe's first draft of "The Bells," a nineteen line poem divided into two stanzas. The first stanza captures the beauty of the bells: The little silver bells! How fairy-like a melody there floats From there throats."(4) Poe clearly finds himself willing to play Mrs. Shew's game and embrace the bells as things of beauty, beings with "merry little throats," "silver, tinkling throats"; he personifies the bells as singers resounding in a fairy-like chorus. If bells are ringing in alarm, though, only the most stalwart bell aficionado will regard them as a fairy chorus for long, a description that Poe abandons in the poem's second and final stanza. The original version of "The Bells" concludes with a more somber view of the bells than that of the description with which it began: The heavy iron bells! How horrible a monody there floats From their throats The bells now are monotonous and not at all pleasant, for "monody" replaces the "melody" of the previous stanza. Poe now finds the bells to have "melancholy" and "deep-toned" throats, a clear reversal of the notion of fairy choirs. Such a shift in opinion supports the hypothesis of alarm bells being the inspiration for Poe's poem. After all, when one takes tea in the City at a friend's house, bells ringing from all the churches would be rather fun, but after twenty minutes or so the novelty would wear off. Supporting such a notion of the repetition of the sound as something altogether alarming to the poet, the second stanza contains one more line than the first: "How I shudder at the notes." It is in all likelihood that this is how "The Bells" was born; an energetic hostess assisted her friend in making the most of an afternoon with resounding alarm bells in the air. The whole event, at the outset, appears to be a gross violation to the ego of carillonneurs the world over. To read the final, 112 line version of "The Bells" is to envisage a behemoth carillon witnessed during Poe's sojourn in France, an instrument of at least five octaves and a recital featuring a range of works from Handle to Schöenburg executed by a true octopus-of-a-carillonneur. Alas, there is no such wonderment behind the inspiration of "The Bells." Yet bells did have some sort of influence over Poe. It is difficult to divine exactly which set of bells was heard, for many probably were ringing and even if there were no sound of alarm to inspire, there are many bells near Mrs. Shew's residence. Without the slings of modern traffic, it would have been possible to hear the bells of numerous churches: St. Bartholomew's, St. Luke's, St. John's, St. Marks's in the Bowery, The Bleeker Street Presbyterian Church and Grace Church.(5) Thus, claiming the instruments of one special church or other institution as the source for Poe is nothing short of ludicrous, especially when one considers that he wrote and published the original poem and then lengthened it to five times its original size over a period of more than a year. Clearly, it is possible that Poe found himself exposed to many bells in over a year of travel. What is most important, though, is that bells were on his mind. Interestingly enough, it was probably not only the inspirational prodding of Mrs. Shew and the chiming of nearby churches that drove Poe to write the final version of "The Bells." Poe had written a short story entitled "The Devil in the Belfry" that featured a bell being rung thirteen times, thus causing the possession of all timepieces: The clocks carved upon the furniture took to dancing as if bewitched, while those upon the mantelpieces could scarcely contain themselves for fury, and kept such a continual striking of thirteen and such a frisking and wiggling of their pendulums as was really horrible to see.(6) It is evident that the power of bells intrigued him; Romanticism tends to involve objects evoking powerful emotions. Le Vicomte de Châteaubriand, a Romantic Poet, examines a poem on Nôtre Dame and the mood that the sctructure evokes in his treatise Le Génie du Christianisme. The poem is entitled "La Chartreuse de Paris" and, as Châteaubriand illustrates in the analogy of the Isthmus of Panama and the waters it offers on each side that "présentent aux méditations le double tableau du calme et de l'orage," it manages to capture the difold nature of the great cathedral; just as one body of water on the Isthmus is in a state of calm while the other features rage in agitated strength, so also does the religious monument speak simultaneously on two distinct levels.(7) The monument has the power to awe and inspire all with its presence: "le bruit les environne," for the sound or mood of the cathedral cannot help but envelop all who witness it. The notion of churches, abbeys, monuments and bells as strongholds of a vast array of human emotions waiting to burst forth when contemplated is a fundamental tenet of Romanticism. Even Wordsworth, a Lake Poet who often did not win the critical approval of Poe, finds sustenance in moments and places: While here I stand, not only with the sense Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts That in this moment there is life and food For future years.(8) Wordsworth's speaker contemplates an experience that happened five years previous to his penning of this poem while he rests situated a few miles above Tintern Abbey. There is a certain distance that does not seem to exist with the composition of "The Bells" and yet Poe worked on elaborating the poem for over a year, time enough for him to recollect his powerful emotions 'in tranquillity'. What separates the two poets on the notion of objects inspiring is that Poe is far bolder than Wordsworth. He actually embraces a diction that mimics his subject: "In 'The Bells' the sounds of the syllables, taken by themselves and in their context, are doubtless more important than the denotative meanings of the words."(9) The poem actually sounds like the tolling of bells The poem's first section features silver bells: What a world of merriment their melody foretells! How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In the icy air of night! The bells are innocent and pure, much like a child, for they seem to twinkle with a crystalline delight. In fact, the vocabulary even mimics that of a child with the gloriously inventive word "tintinnabulation" being very much in the realm of the creative speech of youth. The silver bells of youth jingle and tinkle, music welling up from their very being in a crisp and pure fashion. The second section of the piece features mellow wedding bells-- Golden bells. While the bells of callow youth tinkle and twinkle like astral points of light, the poem's speaker emphasizes an innate harmony in the second set of bells. They feature "a gush of euphony"; the golden bells sound in "molten-golden notes" and, as the speaker indicates, are "all in tune." The golden bells sound harmoniously and represent the newlywed years of life, an interpretation that finds stability in the image of the listening turtle-dove, a symbol of connubial bliss. It is "the swinging and the ringing" of the golden bells that assure rapture in the near future. It is a rapture of short duration, though. The loud alarum bells-- Brazen bells call out in the night and their song is "a tale of terror"; the image of their peal being like a turbulent sea is striking. It is the brazen bells that represent age, discontentment with life and a certain fear of death. These bells shriek "out of tune" and contrast the golden bells, for their song is anything but harmonious: "How they clang, and clash, and roar!" They represent the wildness of a distended existence, of life itself as a "deaf and frantic fire." It is evocative of a five hour Schöenburg concert on the carillon and cannot help but be a cacophony of clamorous alarm. This wildness ceases, though, as the poem's speaker moves on to describe yet another type of bell, the iron bells that ring in "muffled monotone." The iron bells are instruments of death: They are neither brute nor human, They are Ghouls. Poe here employs the same personification that he did in his original version as the bells become entities of their own design, even harbingers from another world. The iron bells bespeak an existence of old age and pain: every sound that floats From the rust within their throats Is a groan. These bells sound in a "throbbing" and "sobbing" chant rather than sing like a fairy chorus in "the icy air of night." What is most intriguing about this last cycle of bells is that someone tolls them; yet it appears that the bells control him more than anything else, for his merry bosom swells With the Pæan of the bells! And he dances and he yells. The bells have dominance over the ringer, an interesting notion indeed. The bells sound and their king who tolls them lets them guide his own voice: he knells, knells, knells, In a happy Runic Rhyme, To the tolling of the bells. He becomes a bell himself and joins in the chorus for the funeral knell, knelling like a bell with his dancing and yells. It is as if he bows in homage before the bells and relinquishes his sanity to them. The incredible repetition of these last lines draws the reader into the madness of the situation, of the might the bells wield over their ringer or perhaps even a bystander. Poe ends on a bleak, but incredibly powerful note; the listener supplicates himself to "the moaning and groaning of the bells," to the call to death. Freudian critics have a field day with this piece, describing it as a poem "joining Hymen and Death," the result of Poe being unable to handle his platonic relationship with Mrs. Shew and the possibility that it might flourish into sexual passion.(10) He joins love and death together in a macabre fashion to handle the wildness of his desires. Unfortunately, such a narrow and silly reading of the poem denies it its greatness. One need only consult the first stanza of the final version again to realize all that Poe implies about the nature of bells: 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 tintinabulation that so musically wells From the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells-- From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells. The stars keep time to the bells; the astral beauties of the air supplicate themselves to and follow the rhythm of bells. This poem is Poe's grand tribute to the beauty of the bell. To discuss only hymens and death, clappers and the sexual shape of a bell is ludicrous. Much more is at stake in this poem, for Poe's speaker describes a world where bells are supreme, where the stars and even their king who tolls them follow their all-pervading song. Proust had his Madelines and Wordsworth had his Lucy. It becomes apparent, at least to certain degree, that Poe had his bells; a single concept or action resonates for the poet on many levels and captures something of truth or at the very least the human condition. The glory of "The Bells" is that the reader might exult with Poe, that the language is powerful enough and the mood cathartic enough to draw the reader into the wildness of the situation. The poem's structure represents the emotions that bells evoke; the piece grows more repetitive, intense and musical as it progresses, causing Poe's speaker to, in effect, become a bell. What better testament can there be for the power of bells? One is left in awe as they resound over the landscape, breathing, speaking, ceasing not.
		`Notes` 1 Poe, E. A., Collected Works of Edgar Allen Poe, Ed. Thomas Olive Mabbott, (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1969), 435.
Articles by Daniel Varholy '98 which have appeared in the GCNA newsletter, Carillon News: May 1997: "Breathing, Speaking, Ceasing Not: Examining 'The Bells' of Poe" May 1998: The Middlebury Guild's Spring Tour
		2 Quin, Arthur Hobson, Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography, (New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1941), 563.
		3 Poe, E. A., Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, 430.
		4 Ibid., 434.
		5 Ibid., 430.
		6 Poe, E. A., Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe: Tales and Sketches 1831-1842, Ed. Thomas Olive Mabbott, (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1978), 373.
		7 Châteaubriand, Œuvres Complètes de Châteaubriand,Vol.2, Ed. M. Sainte-Beuve, (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1927), 355.
		8 Wordsworth, William, Selected Poems and Prefaces of William Wordsworth, Ed Jack Stillinger, (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1965), 109.
		9 Stoval, Floyd, Edgar Allan Poe the Poet: Essays New and Old on the Man & His Work, (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1969), 232.
		10 Bonaparte, Marie, The Life and Works of Edgar Allan Poe: A Psycho-Analytic Interpretation, (London: The Hogarth Press, 1971), 158.
Articles by Daniel Varholy '98 which have appeared in the GCNA newsletter, Carillon News: May 1997: "Breathing, Speaking, Ceasing Not: Examining 'The Bells' of Poe" May 1998: The Middlebury Guild's Spring Tour Main Homepage