Ring out wild bells to the wild sky
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.
Words in this poem
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
- civic a.
- Relating to, or derived from, a city or citizen; relating to man as a member of society, or to civil affairs. Civic crown (Rom. [L.civicus, fr. civis citizen. See City.]
- narrowing n.
- The act of contracting, or of making or becoming less in breadth or extent.
- lust v. i.
- To list; to like. [AS. lystan. See Lust, n., and cf. List to choose.]
- valiant a.
- Vigorous in body; strong; powerful; as, a valiant fencer. [OE. valiant, F. vaillant, OF. vaillant, valant, originally p. pr. of OF. & F. valoir to be worth, L. valere to be strong. See Wield, and cf. Avail, Convalesce, ]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky is in the public domain. This text is taken from In memoriam, Project Gutenberg ebook #70950; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Alfred Tennyson, Ring out wild bells to the wild sky, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-104.html, id L18464.
Form and metre
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky is 32 lines in 8 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBA. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 99% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABBA skyA · lightB · nightB · dieA
- 2 ABBA newA · snowB · goB · trueA
- 3 ABBA mindA · moreB · poorB · mankindA
- 4 ABBA causeA · strifeB · lifeB · lawsA
- 5 ABBA sinA · timesB · rhymesB · inA
- 6 ABBA bloodA · spiteB · rightB · goodA
- 7 ABBA diseaseA · goldB · oldB · peaceA
- 8 ABBA freeA · handB · landB · beA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Ring out wild bells to the wild sky, | 8 | ········ |
| The flying cloud, the frosty light: | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| The year is dying in the night; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. | 8 | ········ |
| Ring out the old, ring in the new, | 8 | ········ |
| Ring, happy bells, across the snow: | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·· |
| The year is going, let him go; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Ring out the false, ring in the true. | 8 | ········ |
| Ring out the grief that saps the mind, | 8 | ········ |
| For those that here we see no more; | 8 | ········ |
| Ring out the feud of rich and poor, | 8 | ········ |
| Ring in redress to all mankind. | 8 | ··˘/··// |
| Ring out a slowly dying cause, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| And ancient forms of party strife; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Ring in the nobler modes of life, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| With sweeter manners, purer laws. | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| Ring out the want, the care, the sin, | 8 | ········ |
| The faithless coldness of the times; | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| But ring the fuller minstrel in. | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Ring out false pride in place and blood, | 8 | ········ |
| The civic slander and the spite; | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Ring in the love of truth and right, | 8 | ········ |
| Ring in the common love of good. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Ring out old shapes of foul disease, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Ring out the thousand wars of old, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Ring in the thousand years of peace. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Ring in the valiant man and free, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The larger heart, the kindlier hand; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Ring out the darkness of the land, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Ring in the Christ that is to be. | 8 | ········ |
On this poem
"Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace,"
the millennium; and last of all,
"Ring in the Christ that is to be;"
God Himself again upon earth.
Notes from the edition 5
Section introductions from Alfred Gatty, <i>A Key to Lord Tennyson's “In Memoriam”</i>, 4th ed. (George Bell & Sons, 1900; Project Gutenberg #36637). Line notes credited “[Tennyson]” are Tennyson's own notes; “[Hallam Tennyson]” marks a note that is wholly his son and editor's own explanatory bracket, not the poet's own words; “[Emily Tennyson]” marks the few notes signed by his wife. All three are from <i>The Works of Tennyson, Annotated by the Author</i>, ed. Hallam, Lord Tennyson, vol. 3 (Macmillan, 1908; Internet Archive worksoftennysona03tennuoft). Line notes credited “[Bradley]” are A. C. Bradley's, from <i>A Commentary on Tennyson's In Memoriam</i> (Macmillan, 1910; Internet Archive commentaryontenn00braduoft). All these number sections by the final, 131-section text, not the site's own 1850 numbering: from final XL to LVIII subtract one section number, from LX on subtract two, to reach the site's; the site prints the 129-section first edition of 1850 (see the work's own blurb), so two of the final text's numbered sections have no home here and are skipped.
- Stanza 3, line 1 Cf. Prologue, 37 ff., LXXXV. 61, 62, and Epilogue, 21 ff. [Bradley]
- Stanza 3, line 4 Cf. Prologue, 12. [Bradley]
- Stanza 7, line 3 Cf. cm. 33. [Bradley]
- Stanza 8, line 4 Ring in the Christ that is to be. The broader Christianity of the future. [Cf. Introduction, supra, p. 223. — ED.] [Tennyson]
- Stanza 8, line 4 'My father expressed his conviction... that the forms of Christian religion would alter, but that the spirit of Christ would still grow from more to more " in the roll of the ages,"
Till each man find his own in all men's good, And all men work in noble brotherhood. " This is one of my meanings," he said, " of
Ring in the Christ that is to be:
when Christianity without bigotry will triumph, when the controversies of creeds shall have vanished, and
Shall bear false witness, each of each, no more, But find their limits by that larger light, And overstep them, moving easily Thro' after-ages in the Love of Truth, The Truth of Love." ' (Memoir, I. 325, 6). For the antithesis with ' the darkness of the land ' cf. XXX. 29-32- [Bradley]
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.