“Ring Out the Old, Ring in the New, Ring Out the False, Ring in the True”

 

(Sunrise over the Yadkin Valley)

I can’t really say that Lord Alfred Tennyson is one of my favorite poets, but I guess I’d say that this poem really rang a bell with me.  My prayer for our country and our world is that we may “Ring out…The civic slander and the spite” and “ring in the love of truth and right.”  And that we may “Ring out the grief that saps the mind, ring in redress to all mankind…Ring in…the larger heart, the kindlier hand…ring out the darkness of the land.”

May we all know love and light in 2008.

  “Ring Out, Wild Bells” from In Memoriam    

 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.

                                                                  — Lord Alfred Tennyson