Time [is] flowing in the middle of the night.

The Christmas bells from hill to hill Answer each other in the mist.

The vow that binds too quickly snaps itself.

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.

O hard, when love and duty clash!

When the Sun Clearest shineth Serenest in the heaven, Quickly are obscured All over the earth Other stars.

All things have rest: why should we toil alone, We only toil, who are the first of things.