FEINBERG / WHITMAN  LITERARY FILE  POETRY FILE "The Sobbing of the Bells" (1881). Proof.
Box 29 Folder 20
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 toil and clang—city to city, joining, sounding, passing,
Those heart-beats of a Nation in the night.