Who said “Ring out the old, Ring in the new”?

The copyright on this book is 1898, but the messages are relevant today.

Someone gave me an old book The Poetry of the Seasons, copyright 1898. As I was putting Christmas decorations away on New Year’s day, I noticed the book and flipped through it looking for a New Year’s poem.

I found “The New Year” by Alfred Tennyson, an 1800s English poet. He also wrote “The Charge of the Light Brigade.”

It is a poem about ringing out the old and ringing in the new. I was struck about how the negatives that were being rung out with the old year in the 1800s were still around 2oo years later: grief, feud of rich and poor, party strife, want, care, sin, coldness of the times, false pride, civic slander, disease, lust for gold, and wars.  These blights upon the world still seem very much with us.

But Tennyson’s stanzas end with an optimistic call to action to “Ring out the false, ring in the true” and other such positive remarks to balance his listing of world problems.

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.

Pessimists might look at the above words and see the world as a bad place that will never change. Optimists might see the message as an opportunity to improve the problems of the world.

In 2010, we do well to reflect on Tennyson’s words and his call to action. Do we see problems or opportunities?

We can work to change our community in 2010 and then see what the ringing of bells will bring for us in 2011.