Welcome back to the Daily Poem here on the Close Reeds Podcast Network.

I'm David Kern.

Today's poem is in keeping with our ongoing series here, our ongoing Christmas series.

It is from Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem in Memorium, one of the most famous poems ever written.

This is quite a long poem, and I'm just going to read a section of it.

In Memorium was published in 1850, the year that Tennyson was appointed poet laureate.

It is about his friend, Arthur Henry Hallam, who died at the age of 22, and Nathanus was very close to him.

And Hallam happened to be his sister's fiancé as well, for what it's worth.

This is a section of that in Memorial Poem that is related to Christmas,

and it goes by the name Ring Out Wild Bells.

I write a first and then offer a couple of comments.

And this is the section labeled C-V-I, or that's 106 in Roman numerals.

And that's the section from in-memorium.

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. Bring 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, pure 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.

...