Downloads  

Consider this lovely poem for devotions during the Naw-Ruz season.

This poet is better known as Alfred Lord Tennyson, but he was not given the title, Baron, until 1883.  Therefore, when this poem, Ring Out Wild Bells, was published in 1850, he was Mr. Tennyson.

-----------------------------

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 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.

 -- Alfred Tennyson 1809 - 1892

From "In Memoriam." 1850

The following information was taken from the World Book Encyclopedia.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, born 6 Aug 1809 and died 6 Oct 1892, was given the title, Baron, in 1883 by Queen Victoria.  He is buried in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey.  Tennyson was ranked as the most popular British poet of the Victorian era, but he avoided pubic life.

Tennyson entered Cambridge University in 1828, but never received a degree.  While at Cambridge, he joined "The Apostles", a society of undergraduates that included several men who later became intellectual leaders of the age.

Tennyson's philosophic masterpiece, In Memoriam published in 1850, is composed of 133 poems.  The work reflects the author's anguished but triumphant efforts to conquer the religious doubt common at that time, partly because of current theories about evolution.  The people of Tennyson's day were torn between faith and doubt.