RING 0UT WILD BELLS

 

                                RING 0UT WILD BELLS

          This night is going to be end of year 2025. People will be happy. They will ring  loudest  bells to ring out the evils of the dying year which were like the grief that sapped the mind, the feud of rich and poor, the ancient forms of party strife, the ignoble  manners of life, the  false pride in place and blood , the unjust laws, the want, the care, the sin, the faithless coldness of days and nights , the narrowing lust of gold, the desire for war, and the mournful poems which the poet himself.  

            But simultaneously they will ring in the powerful bells for the New Year that will bring about a riddance from all these bitter features of the socio-political and religious  life.

            Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom who died of flue, wrote a bit long poem “Ring Out Wild Bells.”

            Here are an extracted stanza and some single lines:

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.

 

Note: (The year is here personified as a critical sick man.)

 

Ring out ancient forms of party strife….

Ring out the want, the care the sin….

Ring out false pride in place and blood….

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold

Ring out the darkness of the land.

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in the common love of good.  

Ring out many-changing falsehoods.

Ring in the love of truth and right…

Ring in the valiant man and free.

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

 

            A literary critic rightly said that this poem is a discourse on new beginning – a fresh start for mankind as a whole, and individuals in particular. There is a call for Truth in this poem.  

                                                *******

G.R.Kanwal

31 December 2025