Poem of the Day: ‘Ring out, wild bells’

It was 1850 when Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) published “In Memoriam A.H.H.,” an elegy for his close college friend, Arthur Henry Hallam, who had died 17 years before, at the age of 22. Or perhaps “elegy” is the wrong word for a poem with 2,916 lines in 133 sections — a vast canvas on which Tennyson sought to express his grief at the loss of his friend, along with his grasping for the spirit of the age, his humanism, his religious sense, and his mixture of optimism about human truth and pessimism about human error.Part of the reason “In Memoriam” could encompass so much is its form, written in tetrameter quatrains with the rhyme scheme that Tennyson made his own (still called the “In Memoriam rhyme,” which runs abba, the two middle lines rhymed with each other, and the first line with the last). The form proved so flexible that Tennyson could engage broader topics with it, and with “In Memoriam” he was free to range through a world that must take account of one incontrovertible fact: We live in a universe of death, and we must continue to live even when those we love die.The form is even flexible enough to include a New Year’s lyric in Section 106. That section is today’s Poem of the Day, part of Tennyson’s reaching, in his concluding sections, toward consolation for his grief over his lost friend, as he seeks in the passage of time to find a gain to match the loss. “Ring out, wild bells” imagines the possibility that the New Year will abolish evil, disease, war. The poem is a wild call for an impossible future that pious hope must nonetheless demand: “Ring in the Christ that is to be.”In Memoriam 106 (“Ring out, wild bells”)by Alfred, Lord TennysonRing 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 rhymesBut 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.___________________________________________ With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by Joseph Bottum with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, the Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.

Poem of the Day: ‘Ring out, wild bells’

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