Thursday Text: Ring Out Wild Bells

I realize that we're more than halfway through January, but I've been thinking about this text: Ring Out Wild Bells from In Memoriam by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

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 thy 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.

Thursday Text: In Memoriam

It's Tennyson again this week. One of his best-known poems, from which the text for Ring Out, Wild Bells comes, is In Memoriam. It was written over a period of years following the passing of a good friend from Cambridge who was engaged to Tennyson's sister. I'm just going to include a portion of the text as we have just marked the 10th year since Tony's best friend passed away (car accident) and are approaching the 7th year since my late husband passed away (also car accident). We have learned much in our lives and about life since then.

Could I have said while he was here,
`My love shall now no further range;
There cannot come a mellower change,
For now is love mature in ear'?

Love, then, had hope of richer store:
What end is here to my complaint?
This haunting whisper makes me faint,
'More years had made me love thee more.'

But Death returns an answer sweet:
`My sudden frost was sudden gain,
And gave all ripeness to the grain,
It might have drawn from after-heat.'