By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Taken from his long elegy In Memoriam, published in 1850, this poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-92) virtually concludes the cycle of poems as a whole. In Memoriam A. H. H. is an elegy, comprising a whopping 133 cantos, for Tennyson’s friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who had died suddenly in 1833. ‘Ring Out, Wild Bells’ shows Tennyson regaining his faith and overcoming his grief when hearing the bells ringing in Christmas Day.
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.