Ring out the old....

What a tremendous year 2012 has been. With so many celebrations, especially here in the UK with the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics and Paralympics, it seemed appropriate then, in a year when bells literally did ring out all over Britain to end the year with more bells. Tennyson was to the fore in the summer when one of his lines from 'Ulysses' was writ large in the  Olympic athletes' village..... 'to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield'. It may be old fashioned to choose another Tennyson poem  to record the year's end but I think it carries a message of hope and decency for a better world and I am all for that in the year ahead. Have a good one everyone.

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 to 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 the 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.