One of my favorite Christmas hymns is “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day“. It is a beautiful song with powerful words and a haunting melody. The lyrics were originally written as a poem entitled “Christmas Bells” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, on Christmas day in 1864. Our country was in the midst of the Civil War, and Longfellow had just received the news that his son had been injured on the battlefield. Having recently lost his wife as well, he was firmly planted in a state of depression when he wrote the piece. The text speaks to the underlying sadness and sense of despair felt by all during that bleak time in American history. This song is as much an anti-war song as it is a Christmas song. The original stanzas 4 and 5 refer to the battle, and are usually omitted from most musical arrangements.
"I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
Til ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
And in despair I bowed my head
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.”
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound the carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn, the households born
Of peace on earth, good will to men."
This article appears in Dec 2-8, 2009.
