A recitation of this poem was on one of my favorite Christmas albums, as a teen:

[capri0mni]

In Memoriam, [Ring out, wild bells]


by Lord Alfred 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 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.

And the other day (Yesterday? or was it the day before?) I got the idea in my head to write my own poem, following these sentiments-- but from a Humanist/Agnostic/Atheist perspective, instead of a Christian one.

Something about how, although, strictly speaking, picking one day as the New Year is arbitrary-- there's really little difference between one minute and the next, even if we give those minutes, days, years, different names.

But-- But -- BUT -- the very act of collectively, as a society, to agree to let go of the past and take a deep breath full of hope-- this is still and always be, a moment and an action of profound Grace. And, like anarchy, it has little meaning done alone, but a great deal of meaning when done as a society.

I don't think I will complete this poem before midnight, my time (little more than three hours from now). But maybe I'll complete it before the passing of Orthodox Christmas...

Comments

[spiralsheep]

I just leave the last verse off when I recite it. It's an extract from a longer poem, as you know, so choosing where to begin and end reading is a conscious decision anyway. Of course, my reading then ends on "Ring in the thousand years of peace" which, in my culture, has unfortunate echoes of Tausendjähriges Reich ("Thousand-Year Reich") and similar phrases but it's still better than the last verse (I LIKE darkness!). :-)

[capri0mni]

It's an extract from a longer poem ... so choosing where to begin and end reading is a conscious decision, anyway

True. But I still want to write my own version from the perspective of the world view I inhabit, namely: the planet circling the sun, the sun circling the galaxy, our galaxy traveling in its cluster, while living in a world with shared time zones and differing seasons (Hello, Internet!), and so forth...