In Memoriam CVI (106)

Last year, I became acquainted with Tennyson’s In Memoriam, a series of 131 poems he wrote for a close friend that died suddenly. These poems are full of beauty and striking imagery that uncovers the many faces of grief. I’ve read through In Memoriam twice but continue to keep a copy by my bed so I can pick it up and re-read favorites. (Above is a lovely edition from the early 1900s I found on eBay).

With New Year’s just behind us, I thought I’d post poem 106 from In Memoriam. The oft heard phrase, “ring out the old, ring in the new” is drawn from this poem. In context, the phrase is about more than personal wish-fulfillment or progress for its own sake. Instead, Tennyson is echoing Paul’s sentiment in Ephesians: “put off your old man, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and […] put on the new man, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:22-24). Tennyson hopes that, with the old year, we’ll ring out fallen ways and, with the new year, ring in Christ’s goodness in greater measure.

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.