Hello
everyone –
Today
(Friday, February 16th) marks the beginning of the Lunar New Year in
the traditional Chinese calendar. The New Year (or Spring Festival) usually
occurs on the second New Moon after the Winter Solstice (December 21 or 22).
Today, the Year of the Dog will begin as the year 4715 dawns in East Asia and
around the globe. To celebrate the Lunar New Year, I have selected two poems
for you to enjoy. “Ring Out, Wild Bells” is a New Year poem by Alfred, Lord
Tennyson, and “Kubla Khan” (by Samuel Taylor Coleridge) celebrates the splendor
of medieval China under the aegis of Kublai Khan (reigned 1260-1294), the
grandson of Genghis Khan.
“Ring
Out, Wild Bells” (1850)
By
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)
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 thy 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.
“Kubla
Khan” a/k/a “Xanadu” (1816)
By
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
In
Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A
stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where
Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through
caverns measureless to man
Down
to a sunless sea.
So
twice five miles of fertile ground
With
walls and towers were girdled round:
And
there were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where
blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And
here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding
sunny spots of greenery.
But
O, that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down
the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A
savage place! as holy and enchanted
As
ever beneath a waning moon was haunted
By
woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And
from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As
if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A
mighty fountain momently was forced;
Amid
whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge
fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or
chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And
'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It
flung up momently the sacred river.
Five
miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through
wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then
reached the caverns measureless to man,
And
sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And
'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral
voices prophesying war!
The
shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated
midway on the waves;
Where
was heard the mingled measure
From
the fountain and the caves.
It
was a miracle of rare device,
A
sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A
damsel with a dulcimer
In
a vision once I saw:
It
was an Abyssinian maid,
And
on her dulcimer she played,
Singing
of Mount Abora.
Could
I revive within me,
Her
symphony and song,
To
such a deep delight ‘twould win me,
That
with music loud and long,
I
would build that dome in air,
That
sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And
all who heard should see them there,
And
all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His
flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave
a circle round him thrice,
And
close your eyes with holy dread,
For
he on honey-dew hath fed,
And
drunk the milk of Paradise.
Until
next time –
Rob :)
