Friday – New Year’s Day
I’ve shared Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Ring Out Wild Bells” in the past but feel the need for it again as we bid farewell to what has been the worst year (historically speaking) of my life. And that includes 1968.
The poem is part of In Memoriam at a point when Tennyson is finally becoming reconciled to the death of his dear friend Arthur Hallam—or if not reconciled, at least finding new ways to cope with the loss. His declaration of hope, in other words, is hard earned. Calling for the bells to “ring out the Christ that is to be” is a desire that the love he feels for Hallam spread to all humankind.
The poem undoubtedly influenced Longfellow’s “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” written during an even darker time in America’s history than the present one. In that poem, the horrors of the Civil War cause a momentary despair:
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
Like Tennyson, however, Longfellow finds cause for hope in “the Christ that is to be”:
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.
Given our current situation, I especially notice in Tennyson’s poem the “old shapes of foul disease” and (here’s looking at you, Mitch) the “narrowing lust of gold.” GOP parsimony on anything other than tax cuts is expressed in “the want, the care, the sin.”
And then there’s “party strife,” “false pride,” “civil slander,” and “spite.” Yes, Tennyson’s poem is as timely as ever.
In their place, he calls for a “larger heart” and “kindlier hand.” We should all be able to embrace that.
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.
2020 is dying in the night. Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.