“Ring out the old, ring in the new,” as the hymn “Ring Out, Wild Bells” goes.
This popular New Year’s hymn, sung by congregations around the world, originated as a poem.
Lord Alfred Tennyson penned the hymn, according to Poetry Foundation. Tennyson was a Victorian-era author — “As official poetic spokesman for the reign of Victoria, he felt called upon to celebrate a quickly changing industrial and mercantile world with which he felt little in common, for his deepest sympathies were called forth by an unaltered rural England; the conflict between what he thought of as his duty to society and his allegiance to the eternal beauty of nature seems peculiarly Victorian.”
Tennyson became a prolific poet from an early age, per Poetry Foundation. When William Wordsworth died in 1850, Tennyson became poet laureate. That same year, he wrote “Ring Out, Wild Bells.”
This now well-known poem is part of a larger work called “In Memoriam A.H.H,” a series of poems Tennyson wrote in commemoration of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam when he passed away.
The poem speaks to the ringing in of the New Year. The phrase “ring in the New Year” comes from the tradition of ringing bells at midnight, according to Mental Floss. “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,” as the poem said.
Now this is a popular hymn is traditionally sung around the New Year.