There came the solemn tolling of a bell!
O God! O God! how could I sit close by,
And neither scream nor cry?
As if I had been stone, all hard and cold,
I listened, listened, listened, still and dumb,
While the folk murmured, and the death-bell tolled,
And the day brightened, and his time had come.
All else was silent but the knell
Of the slow bell!
And I could only wait, and wait, and wait,