Ring out the old, ring in the new!

I was looking for a Jacquie Lawson e-card to use for a Happy New Year greeting and found myself very drawn to this one (click here to view the card). The text was so perfect for the ending of this crazy year that I was curious to know more about it.

Well, the two verses used in the e-card are from “Ring Out, Wild Bells!,” a famous poem which itself is part of the much longer work titled “In Memoriam A.H.H.,” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Published in 1850, it’s amazing to me how pertinent the words are for this moment in time.

Tennyson’s poem has been set to music many times over the years and I listened to a number of versions, wondering if there might be one that particularly resonated with me. And that’s how I found Alana Levandoski and the song with which I gratefully bid farewell to 2020 and joyfully embrace 2021.

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.