Ring Out, Wild Bells

Program Notes (via Hal Leonard):
Ring Out, Wild Bells is a poem by English poet Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892). Published in 1850, the year he was appointed Poet Laureate, it forms part of In Memoriam, Tennyson’s elegy to Arthur Henry Hallam, his sister’s fiancé who died at the age of twenty two. According to a story widely held in Waltham Abbey, the “wild bells” in question were the bells of the Abbey Church. Tennyson was staying at High Beach in the vicinity and heard the bells being rung on New Year’s Eve. It is an accepted English custom to ring English Full circle bells to ring out the old year and ring in the new year over midnight on New Year’s Eve. Sometimes the bells are rung half-muffled for the death of the old year, then the muffles are removed to ring without muffling to mark the birth of the new year.