RING OUT, WILD BELLS!

THIS poem is generally known as the best short New Year's poem in the language. It communicates to us the joyous thrill with which for many years the new year has been ushered in. The glad ringing of the bells and the merry voices are heard in exultation over the coming of the new year. While men and women have loved this poem as a New Year's poem, they are coming to see that in reality it is a poem for every day. It is true that "With every new year we hope for better days, for the victory of right over wrong, of the true over false, of love over hate." We used to make good resolutions on New Year's Day, but we soon found that it took every day in the year to carry them out. So, "Every day has a new beginning," and every day is as the new year with its new opportunities for service to do away with strife, hatred, and suffering. Men must work together every day, so that the "wild bells" of the happy new year may at last "Ring in the Christ that is to be."

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 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.

NOTES

- Alfred Tennyson.

1. Read as many other New Year's poems as you can.

2. Look up the New Year's customs, and find if possible how New Year's Day is celebrated in other lands.

3. Be prepared to tell the meanings of the following words and expressions: feud, redress, ancient, modes, faithless, coldness, mournful rhymes, fuller minstrel, false pride, civic slander, narrowing lust, valiant.

EXERCISES

1. Upon what common custom is this poem based?

2. Why are the bells spoken of as "wild bells"?

3. What is meant by "The year is dying"?

4. Explain "Ring out the old, ring in the new.”

5. Similarly explain “Ring out the false, ring in the true.”

6. Does this mean that the old year is "false" and the new year is "true"?

7. In reading the poem, what things are spoken of as false? What things are spoken of as true?

8. In what sense are we to “ring out the false"?

9. In what sense are we to "ring in the true"?

10. If this is a poem for every day, what is demanded of each one in order that he may help "ring in the true"?

11. From this poem how many things are necessary before we can "Ring in the Christ that is to be"?

ADDITIONAL READINGS

WORDSWORTH: The World is Too Much With Us.

ROBERTS: The Changing Year.

SHELLEY: Dirge for the Year.

TENNYSON: The Death of the Old Year.

COOPER: The New Year.

BRYANT: A Song for New Year's Eve.

THAXTER: The Child and the Year.
ROSETTI: New Year Ditty.
SANGSTER: A New Year.

BEAUTY IN COMMON THINGS

Seek not far for beauty. Lo! It glows
In dew-wet grasses all about thy feet;
In birds, in sunshine, childish faces sweet,
In stars, and mountain summits topped with snows.
Go not abroad for happiness. For, see,

It is a flower that blossoms at thy door!

Bring love and justice home, and then no more Thou'lt wonder in what dwelling joy may be. Dream not of noble service elsewhere wrought; The simple duty that awaits thy hand

Is God's voice uttering a divine command; Life's common duties build all that saints have thought.

In wonder-workings or some bush aflame,

Men look for God, and fancy him concealed;

But in earth's common things he stands revealed, While grass and stars and flowers spell out his name. Minot J. Savage.

L

A LITTLE SERMON

OUISA M. ALCOTT'S child stories are the most popular stories to-day. Her “Little Men" and "Little Women" have put new songs into every young reader's heart. These are the stories of real boys and girls. In the following selection, Miss Alcott shows us something of her true warmth and tenderness of heart. She tells here of an incident in a railway station which she speaks of as "A little sermon preached in the way I like" and "in such a natural, simple way that no one could forget it.” She says that for a week afterward only the emptiness of her purse prevented her from comforting the heart of every old woman she met.

A LITTLE SERMON

It was a bleak, snowy day. The train was late, the ladies' room dark and smoky; and the dozen women, old and young, who sat waiting impatiently, all looked cross, low-spirited, or stupid. I felt all three, and thought, as I looked around, that my fellow-beings were a very unamiable, uninteresting set.

Just then a forlorn old woman, shaking with palsy, came in with a basket of wares for sale, and went about mutely offering them to the sitters. Nobody