Ring out Wild Bells
When I retired from full time ministry nearly ten years ago I joined the local Choral Society in St Austell. I could not attend the Autumn Concert last year due to a recent replacement knee operation (which also curtailed my ringing until around Christmas) but one of the items in the concert was “Ring out Wild Bells”. This is a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson set to music composed by Percy Fletcher; below is an extract:
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
While we may not be consciously thinking about these words when we are actually ringing, this poem does make us ponder on what we (ourselves, our country and world) would be like if we followed the teaching of the Word made flesh. So, I wonder if others, when they hear our bells, may hope that the message this poem proclaims will come to pass. We certainly need it a world that is full of dangers, and ask ourselves “what does the Lord require of me?”; and the reply, “to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God”. (Micah 6: 8).
Malcolm Bowers