Ringing in the New Year
When Alfred Lord Tennyson's dear friend Arthur Henry Hallam died at only 22 years old, he wrote his long, extended poem "In Memorium, A.H.H." as his eulogy and witness to his personal journey through the valley of the shadow of grief. In the midst of that sorrowful journey, he hears the ringing of Waltham Abbey church bells blowing in the wind on New Year's day and the bells call him out of his deep sense of loss toward hope. The poem is recited annually at the national New Year's celebration in Sweden and parts of it have been set to music. Some of his verse could have easily been written in reflection on America in 2011 and lifts up the hope of a new and better world with an end to "feud of rich and poor", "party strife and civic slander" and "the darkness of the land". Here it is in it's entirety, an anthem for the New Year:
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.
Let it ring! Let it ring! In the hope of a Happy New Year.
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