by Ruth Storkel
Happy New Year, to readers everywhere and also Burien citizens! We wish you a prosperous year of flourishing in every aspect of your life!
The following poem, “Ring Out, Wild Bells,” written by Alfred Lord Tennyson and published in 1850, addresses the new year. (Tennyson was Britain’s highly-revered Poet Laureate.) The bells featured here were the bells of the Abbey Church. On New Year’s Eve, these bells rang out the old year and rang in the new. Sometimes the bells were first rung in a “muffled state,” depicting the old year fading away; then the muffling was removed, and the new year was heard as loud, brilliant, strong, and hopeful, marking the birth of the new!
Tennyson’s words inspire us as we read them and contemplate a new beginning, with opportunities to do good in our community and encourage our fellow man.
RING OUT, WILD BELLS
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.
YES!
Let’s “ring in the love of truth and right, ring in the common love of good!”
We wish a GOOD YEAR for ALL!
