"The Bells" is a heavily onomatopoeic poem by Edgar Allan Poe which was not published until after his death in 1849. It is perhaps best known for the diacopic use of the word "bells." The poem has four parts to it; each part becomes darker and darker as the poem progresses from "the jingling and the tinkling" of the bells in part 1 to the "moaning and the groaning" of the bells in part 4. Analysis This poem can be interpreted in many different ways, the most basic of which is simply a reflection of the sounds that bells can make, and the emotions evoked from that sound. For example, "From the bells bells bells bells/Bells bells bells!" brings to mind the clamoring of myriad church bells. Several deeper interpretations exist as well. One is that the poem is a representation of life from the nimbleness of youth to the pain of age. Growing despair is emphasized alongside the growing frenzy in the tone of the poem. The sounds of the verses, specifically the repetitive "bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells," lie on a narrow line between sense and nonsense, causing a feeling of instability. Poe uses - and popularised - the word "tintinnabulation", often wrongly thought to be his own coinage, based on the Latin word for "bell", tintinnabulum. The series of "bells" echo the imagined sounds of the various bells, from the silver bells following the klip-klop of the horses, to the "dong, ding-dong" of the swinging golden and iron bells, to screeching "whee-aaah" of the brazen bells. The series are always four, followed by three, always beginning and ending on a stressed syllable. The meter changes to iambic in the lines with repeated "bells," bringing the reader into their rhythm. Most of the poem is a more hurried trochaic tetrameter. The bells of which he writes are thought to be those he heard from Fordham University's bell tower, since Poe resided in the same neighborhood as that university. He also frequently strolled about Fordham's campus conversing with both the students and the Jesuits. Critical response Richard Wilbur characterized "The Bells" as "altogether a tour de force". Critics have analyzed the musical or sound of the poem as opposed to its literary meaning. A. E. DuBois in "The Jazz Bells of Poe" places the emphasis on the musical quality of the poem which presages jazz and 20th