"I heard the bells..."

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!  This is absolutely one of my favorite times of the year.  Christmas has always been my favorite holiday.  I recently posted about a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called The Building of the Ship (see my post, "Sail On, O Ship of State").  While researching that particular poem, I came across an article by Joshua Whitfield published on December 21, 2020 that caught my attention ("Longfellow's Christmas Bells and a Better America").  

First of all, I didn't know that Longfellow wrote a poem about Christmas, but I've heard it perhaps a million times in the past.  The Christmas carol, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" was actually based on Longfellow's 1863 poem, Christmas Bells.  The poem was set to music in 1872, but it really became famous when Bing Crosby recorded the song on October 3, 1956.  It's since been recorded by Harry Belafonte, Johnny Cash, Andy Williams, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and Elvis, among others!  I personally like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir version the best. 

Longfellow wrote the poem on Christmas Day in 1863 at a particularly bleak time in his life and in our nation's history.  His oldest son, Charles Appleton Longfellow, had just joined the Union Army and was severely wounded in the Battle of Mine Run in November, 1863.  His second wife had tragically died in a fire just two years before he wrote the poem.  The opening stanza of the poem begins as a prayer for peace:

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!

The next several stanzas, however, tell the real story.  The church bells are ringing, but because of the American Civil War, the prayer of hope becomes a mockery of despair.  As Whitfield wrote in his article, "The bells marked an absence: the memory of peace, the longing for goodwill.  The loss of his wife, his son's injury, slavery, injustice, war, and America torn, it is a Christmas hymn of sadness, a poem written by a man at a loss for America."

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!"

But fear not, faithful reader!  I would not leave you with sadness and despair on Christmas Day of all days!  The last stanza is the key.  Whitfield explained, "This is the poetry of a sad man, but still who did not lose hope, who could not believe in the finality of despair...the poet's despair is not the end of the poem.  And this is the point, the lesson I am unsure we are mature enough to learn.  Because it would mean hearing bells again, hearing in them the hope they speak.  As Longfellow believed, as he wrote at the end of his poem..."

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!"

I hope that you too hear the bells on Christmas Day.  Merry Christmas.  Peace on earth, good-will to all...