05 March, 2012

Tintinnabulation

Have you ever heard of the word, "tintinnabulation"?  Neither had we, until we learned this first verse from a poem by Edgar Allan Poe:

The Bells

Hear the sledges with the bells---
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
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 tintinnabulation, that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells---
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

We memorised the first verse as part of a lesson in First Language Lessons Level Three, by Susan Wise Bauer. 
Tintinnabulation simply means the sounds of ringing bells.

The poem continues with a further three verses, read it here or enjoy listening to the poem here.

Perhaps we will memorise the remaining verses one day.

6 comments:

Jeanne said...

Great word. I love its onomatopoeic quality!

walking said...

I love how a Mason curriculum has all sorts of hidden surprises. My daughter and I just finished reading how Watson, after realizing how ineffective tapping a pencil was in getting attention, turned to a harsh buzzer and eventually the tinkling bell for the telephone. Now, I get to read Poe's take on bells which is far cheerier than I ever expected.

Lanaya said...

"onomatopoeic' was just the word I was thinking of! ;-) Fun poem!

amy in peru said...

nope. i hadn't heard of it, except i am almost sure i have read this poem! so obviously, i should have remembered...

either way, it's perfectly fitting :)

and i too remember being surprised by the cheerfulness of poe. :)

thanks for sharing!
amy in peru

Melissa said...

I love this! Thank you for pointing it out :)

Dana Leeds said...

I thought the word sounded familiar.... and I have read that Poe poem even recently with my daughter! I just didn't remember where I'd heard it and didn't know what it meant. Thanks!

Also, I realized that your blog I was "following" must have been an old one as it said you hadn't posted in over a year! So, I'm now linked up to your "new" one. Yeah!

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