5.10.2012

Lagniappe 51: The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe

The bells! -- The bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells -- the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe
(listen or download from link above)
Inspired by the book and introduction found at SFFaudio.

According to Webster
la·gniappe \ˈlan-ˌyap, lan-ˈ\
Function:
noun
Etymology: American French, from American Spanish la ñapa the lagniappe, from la + ñapa, yapa, from Quechua yapa something added
Date: 1844
: a small gift given a customer by a merchant at the time of a purchase;
broadly : something given or obtained gratuitously or by way of good measure

3 comments:

  1. I love this one. But I read it differently than you do. I start out light and happy, just like you do...but instead of getting slower and more portentous as the poem goes on, I get more manic and frenzied. And faster. Definitely faster.

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  2. I tried to do the "golden" bells and the "clanging" fairly quick alarum bells ... but those iron bells ... they are slow and deadly sounding. :-D

    To me anyway.

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  3. Yeah, they are...but the people, ah, the people, they that live up in the steeple, keeping time, time, time in a short of runic rhyme...they've always struck me as the product of a fevered and frenzied imagination.

    But mostly, I can't help it. The rhythm carries me away, faster and faster.

    ReplyDelete

I can't hear you ...