Sixteen years after Mandeville was founded in 1834, Alfred, Lord Tennyson published Ring Out, Wild Bells, a poem whose rhythm moves like real bells with each stanza a clear strike that encourages us to ring out the old and ring in the new.
In these stanzas, Tennyson wasn’t interested in polite optimism or surface polish. He was chasing something deeper, nudging us beyond the annual ritual of New Year’s resolutions (which, if you’re anything like me, tend to be abandoned by Mardi Gras) and toward something more meaningful: an audit of character and community, a renovation of self and society.
As we step into January, may this poem invite us into a thoughtful editing of ourselves, a proofreading of our attitudes, ambitions, and actions that give us a “larger heart,” a “kindlier hand,” and ultimately, one that leads us into the arms of "the Christ that is to be."
Remember, it’s never too late to begin again.
New beginnings are always possible for those who can embrace what they cannot change in order to change what they cannot embrace.
Happy New Year!
Christian George, PhD
Ring Out, Wild Bells (1850)
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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.