The Sobbing of the Bells
The Sobbing of the Bells - meaning Summary
National Grief Sounded Aloud
Whitman’s short lyric portrays a sudden, shared mourning signaled by bells. The sound wakes sleepers and spreads from city to city, registering as a collective, internal response—"sad reverberations"—within people’s minds and hearts. The poem compresses public announcement and private feeling into a single image: tolling bells become the nation’s heart-beats in the night, expressing communal shock and sorrow.
Read Complete AnalysesTHE 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.
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