A Poe New Year's Eve. Hear the Bloggers With the Bells!

No fireworks--this is a pretty low-budget blog--but we can still ring in the New Year at World of Poe.  I present Sergei Rachmaninov's choral symphony "The Bells":









A brief, but quite festive choral version:



And just for something completely different:  The same poem as interpreted by...Phil Ochs.  It works pretty darn well:

Bonus for you musicians:  Here's the sheet music for an early 20th-century version by Hugh S. Roberton.

See you all in 2013.  Unless, of course, the Mayans finally decide to kick it up a notch.

Happy New Year From the World of Poe

Ringing in the New Year at Washington Cathedral:

...What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future!--how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells!--
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells--
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!