The Chatham Community Library sends warmest holiday wishes to all the people of Chatham County! As a reminder, we will be closed from December 24th through December 27th, and again for the New Year from December 31st through January 2nd.
To ring in the holiday season, we’ll be sharing with you several offerings from a very festive issue of the Chatham Record, printed on January 13th, 1922. The Record chose to reprint this popular poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson, published in 1850, to celebrate the holiday season and New Year.
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 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.
– Alfred Lord Tennyson
Like this poem and want more by Tennyson? Check out 821.8 TEN at the CCL. Have a wonderful holiday!
