Leaves of Grass (1882)/Songs of Parting/The Sobbing of the Bells

by Walt Whitman

THE SOBBING OF THE BELLS.

(Midnight, Sept. 19–20, 1881.)

The sobbing of the bells, the sudden death-news everywhere,
The slumberers rouse, the rapport of the People,
(Full well they know that message in the darkness,
Full well return, respond within their breasts, their brains, the sad reverberations,)
The passionate toll and clang—city to city, joining, sounding, passing,
Those heart-beats of a Nation in the night.