Malcolm Guite in the New Year - 'Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace' (Lord Tennyson)

 What better way to see in the New Year than with the scholar, poet, and musician Malcolm Guite, in his cosy study sipping his whisky and puffing away on his pipe. And all to the sound of the majestic 106th part of Alfred Lord Tennyson's In Memoriam A.H.H. The message is powerful, full of what we need in the world; ringing out all that is old and worn and destructive, and ringing in a life of renewal.

As Malcolm points out, there is a long tradition of Church bell-ringing in England, and the very intricate art of 'change-ringing', in which, as he says, 'the sequences of the bells alter on a sort of mathematical principle'. 

Here is the link to the short video, and below, the full text of the poem he recites. He then goes on to recite one of his own poems about the deep effect on him of the sound of church bells in contrast to the "electronic squawking" coming from our mobile devices:

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.

Edgar Allan Poe: "In Our Time" - BBC Radio 4

 As mentioned in class when we were looking at the Gothic influences behind the opening to Dickens' Great Expectations, here is the link to the recent programme on BBC Radio 4 on the American writer Edgar Allan Poe. 

I recommend 'In Our Time', and the wonderful Melvyn Bragg for all sorts of other interesting programmes.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Poe (1809-1849), the American author who is famous for his Gothic tales of horror, madness and the dark interiors of the mind, such as The Fall of the House of Usher and The Tell-Tale Heart. As well as tapping at our deepest fears in poems such as The Raven, Poe pioneered detective fiction with his character C. Auguste Dupin in The Murders in the Rue Morgue. After his early death, a rival rushed out a biography to try to destroy Poe's reputation but he has only become more famous over the years as a cultural icon as well as an author.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001svfv

Hopkins' Binsey Poplars: 'O if we but knew what we do...'

More about trees...Below you can read one of my favourite poems, by Gerard Manley Hopkins. It is about the brutal felling of a row of poplar trees near the village of Binsey near Oxford.  It was written in 1879, and resonates strongly with us in this time of ecological crisis. 

Hopkins' highly original, even revolutionary, style is in sharp contrast to his retiring life as a Jesuit priest. The striking images and vigorous unconventional rhythms express a love of and feeling for the vitality of nature, and an existential grappling with the questions of life.