Last year on Poe’s birthday, I posted my favorite poem of all poems, Annabel Lee. This year my Poe birthday gift to you is the first verse of The Bells, which uses one of my very favorite words: tintinnabulation. Isn’t that a wonderful word? What are some of your favorite words? Don’t you have some that you just like the sound of?

Hear the sledges with the bells
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

Note: You must read this poem out loud. Most poems are meant to be read aloud, but this one is especially meaningless unless you read the sounds in full voice.
More favorite words: rhubarb, melancholy, ragamuffin, ubiquitous, felicitous, cacophony, nemesis, ornery, burgundy, joy, bellicose, pickaninny, cantankerous, delicious . . .