Ring Out, Wild Bells

One of my most favorite things about the new year is the chance to sing "Ring Out, Wild Bells" in church. Not only does it feature lyrics by my favorite poet, Alfred Tennyson, it has a beautifully haunting melody--which sounds better on the piano than the organ, I think. And since it is about the new year rolling in, we only get to sing it on the Sunday closest to New Year's Day, which was today. But we didn't sing it!!! I was so mad after sacrament meeting and have been complaining to E. all day, so she's probably sick of hearing about it. Since there's no one else here to complain to, I have to complain on my blog now.

So, because I didn't get to sing it at church, I will share with you the poem that the song comes from, which is called In Memoriam. It was began after Tennyson's best friend Arthur Hallam died suddenly at age 22 (Tennyson was 24). Tennyson's father had just died less than two years earlier. Comprised of 132 poetic sections, which took Tennyson almost 20 years to complete, In Memoriam tracks the progression of grief and pain felt by the poet, which eventually turns to a hope of the future and faith in a greater purpose to life. This particular section is a plea for the world to become renewed with the turning of the new year, shedding all that is evil and becoming all that is good. This year, in light of recent world and national events, the sentiment is more apt than ever before.


CVI.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.