Ring Out Wild Bells is a setting of Tennyson’s poem of the same name that was commissioned by the MLC School (Burwood, Sydney) for performance at their Sydney Opera House concert in June 2009. The performers on that occasion were the Full School Choir and MLC Choir conducted by Michelle Leonard with Kurt Ison playing organ.

Ring out, wild bells – Tennyson

(adapted by Andrew Schultz)

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying cloud, the fading light:

The past is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let it die.

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 humankind.

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 soul and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the life that is to be.