'Ring Out, Wild Bells' words

The festive poem 'Ring Out, Wild Bells' did not start off as a Christmas poem.

Taken from the elegy 'In Memoriam', Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote 'Ring Out, Wild Bells' in in 1850 in tribute to his sister's fiancé Arthur Henry Hallam, who died suddenly at the age of 22.

It depicts the poet overcoming his grief and regaining his optimism to the sounds of the church bells, ringing in the new year. As such it has come to symbolise hope for the future.

It has also been set many times to music, not least by the composers Charles Gounod, August Read Thomas and Jonathan Dove, as well as by George Harrison, who used excerpts of it in his song 'Ding Dong, Ding Dong.'

We named Alfred, Lord Tennyson the greatest poet of all time

'Ring out, wild bells' words

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.

Main image © Getty Images