The railway train as it puffs and clatters through the streets, proclaims its passage with “ding, dong! ding, dong!”
The matutinal milkman tinkle tinkles on his way,
And the vegetable vendor tintinabulates “ting-a-ring! ting-a-ring!”—enough to drive one mad, as a body may say.
The steamboat bell resounds, as if summoning the nation to its doom,
And from chapel, church, and schoolhouse—at all hours—echoes forth the solemn “boom, boom, boom!”
And at any time—day or night—just as it were—to fill up the blank,
The fire-engine rushes through the streets, with its quick, sharp, metallic, warning voice, “Clank—clank—clank—clank!”
It ain’t till you’ve lived in an American city that you learn how it was they came to dub
The oh-no-we-never-mention-him with the name of Bells-ebub!
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