All the stuff you never knew you needed to know about life in rural France.....and all the stuff the books and magazines won't tell you.

Saturday 31 December 2011

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 thy 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 years of war,
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.

Tennyson.... 'In Memoriam'

But it won't happen unless we all put our hands to the bell rope.


8 comments:

  1. You are spot on.Happy New Year to you and Mr. Fly!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Noble sentiments.
    Happy New Year to you, Mme Fly. I look forward to more laughter from the far side of "my" ocean.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Come into the garden Maud - let's hope the sun is shining and the air is clean...!

    ReplyDelete
  4. e, and a happy New Year to you too...let's hope for a bit of people power in 2012.

    dinahmow....if you don't laugh you would cry the way things are! I've always enjoyed Tennyson, seemingly under rated now.
    Happy New Year!

    Steve, when young I used to wonder who the 'black bat knight' was....and then I saw it in print and all was revealed.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think that it is rather optimistic to ring out all of that lot. Anyway let's be positive. A Happy New Year to you!

    ReplyDelete
  6. cheshire wife, well, they didn't manage it in the ninetenth century, or in the twentieth...but if we don't keep pulling on the rope there's no restraint on wickedness at all.

    Still, as you say...let's be positive! Happy New Year!

    ReplyDelete
  7. A belated Happy New Year to you and Mr Fly. I've always had time for Tennyson too and he certainly gives us something to aim for here. I'll try to give that bell-rope a tug whenever I can.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Perpetua, hurrah for another Tennyson fan!
    Yes, if we don't keep pulling we've acquiesced to the immorality of our masters.

    ReplyDelete