A New Years Poem for Memorial Day

Today is not New Years Day and the poem by Lord Alfred Tennyson “In Memoriam, [Ring out, wild bells]” may seem inappropriate for today’s Memorial Day in America. Yet, thinking about Memorial Day and what it represents may make this poem appropriate. We are remembering those who we have lost in battles to protect America and preserve the ideals and those fine realities that made up and defined a good life in America. Some have found these ideals and fine realities tarnished in recent years and with the new Administration, the American public is now looking forward toward the “ringing out the old and ringing in the new” and the changes as characterized in Tennyson’s poem. Unfortunately ringing “out the thousand wars of old and ring in the thousand years of peace” is going to be a challenge for this new Administration and those that follow and unfortunately there will be more Americans lost in battle to memorialize. ..Maurice.

In Memoriam, [Ring out, wild bells]

by Lord Alfred 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 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.