And what to me remains of good?
To her, perpetual maidenhood,
And unto me, no second friend.
The ringing of the Christmas bells prompts a grand poem, in which the poet rises out of his dirges into a rapturous prophecy of the “good time coming.” It is altogether the best of many good lyrics on the same general theme:
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: