It has always been thus

Ring Out, Wild Bells

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 to 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 light.

Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease, 

Rng 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 kindier hand

Ring out the darkness of the land

Ring in the Christ that is to be. 

Alfred wrote these words in 1850, on a stormy night when the bells rang wildly in the fierce wind. Other recountings doubt that even the wild wind could make a heavy church bell ring. I don't know, but it makes a wonderful picture in my mind.  What struck me most though is the timeliness of these words even 173 years later. 

I read that it used to be that church bells rung at midnight, but they were muffled in the beginning to toll in mourning for the passing of old year. At the stroke of midnight, the muffling was removed and the tolling turned to happy peals to ring out across the country side to ring in the new year. What a pretty custom.