Reason & Concern

by Ronquillo C. Tolentino

Ring In The New!

The yearly Christmas party of Aklan’s monolith party, Tibyog Akean on December 21, 2010 categorically brought forth a message – that in the May 2013 elections, incumbent Aklan Congressman Florencio T. Miraflores shall run for Aklan provincial governor while Aklan Governor Carlito S. Marquez shall aspire for Aklan Congressman. The incumbent Aklan cong-ressman and governor are both serving their respective third terms.

As it stands, although it shall be two (2) years before the 2013 elections, no political opposition is on the horizon to challenge Miraflores and Marquez. An opposition has yet to have to an embryonic start. The result of the 2010 Aklan local elections consigned the opposition to a rather surprising silence.

I do not necessarily make political comments in view of the Christmas spirit. But then, an Aklan opposition is really nowhere in sight. I do not say that it is already moribund.
It is really evident in the province’s political environs.

Alfred Lord Tennyson’s In Memoriam (1850) started in 1833 and was completed in 1849. In Memoriam is actually a long elegy on the death of Hallam. Almost universally acclaimed as a masterpiece, it revealed categorically Tennyson’s personal thoughts on God. Too, Tennyson manifest in no uncertain terms his belief of Christ, of immortality and the import of loss.

From In Memoriam is the poem Ring Out, Wild Bells.

The passing of the years had not made me oblivious of this poem which is appropriate to be recited as New Year comes. Ring Out, Wild Bells by Alfred Lord Tennyson
　
"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, right in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow;
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, right 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."
　 Happy New Year!