CC.

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.

A. Tennyson.

CCI.

CHURCH BELLS.

Wake me to-night, my mother dear,
That I may hear

The peal of the departing year.
O well I love, the step of Time
Should move to that familiar chime:
Fair fall the tones that steep
The Old Year in the dews of sleep,
The New guide softly in

With hopes to sweet sad memories akin!

Long may that soothing cadence ear, heart, conscience win."

In the dark winter, ere the snow
Had lost its glow,

This melody we learned; and lo!

We hear it now in every breeze

That stirs on high the summer trees.

We pause and look around

Where may the lone church-tower be found,
That speaks our tongue so well?
The dim peal in the torrent seems to dwell,
It greets us from afar in Ocean's measured swell.

Perhaps we sit at home, and dream
On some high theme,

And forms, that in low embers gleam,
Come to our twilight Fancy's aid:
Then, wavering as that light and shade,
The breeze will sigh and wail,

And up and down its plaintive scale
Range fitfully, and bear

Meet burden to the lowly whispered air,

And ever the sweet bells, that charmed Life's morn are there.

The pine-logs on the hearth sometimes

Mimic the chimes,

The while on high the white wreath climbs,

Which seething waters upward fling,

In prison wont to dance and sing,
All to the same low tune.

But most it loves in bowers of June
At will to come and go,

Where like a minster roof the arched bowers show
And court the pensive ear of loiterer far below.

Be mine at Vesper hour to stray
Full oft that way,

And when the dreamy sounds decay,
As with the sun the gale goes down,
Then far away, from tower or town,
A true peal let me hear,

In manifold melodious cheer,

Through all the lonely grove

Wafting a fair good-night from His high love, Who strews our world with signs from His own world above.

So never with regretful eye

Need we descry

Dark mountains in the evening sky,
Nor on those ears with envy think,
Which nightly from the cataract shrink
In heart-ennobling fear,

And in the rushing whirlwind hear
(When from his Highland cave

He sweeps unchained over the wintry wave)
Ever the same deep chords, such as home fancies crave.

Ever the same, yet ever new,
Changed, and yet true,

Like the pure heaven's unfailing blue,
Which varies on from hour to hour,

Yet of the same high Love and Power
Tells alway: such may seem
Thro' life, or waking or in dream,

The echoing Bells that gave

Our childhood welcome to the healing wave:

Such the remembered word, so mighty then to save.

Keble.

CCII.

RESTORATION.

Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,

To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroy'd,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;

That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.

Behold, we know not anything;

I can but trust that good shall fall
At last-far off-at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.