I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
Underlying the joy and wonder of the nativity is the never-to-be-forgotten fact that Jesus came into this world because we needed Him. Left to our own devices, humanity tends to take the downward path. Just months after the end of the Civil War, having lost his wife and having received news of his son’s battle injury, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the poem “Christmas Bells”. Given his situation, it would have been understandable if his work had become an ode to hopelessness. Indeed, he wrote of humankind’s dire condition; “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, goodwill to men”. How appropriate for the way our world appears to us today!And yet, the poem is also one of hope. “God is not dead,” he wrote, “nor doth he sleep; the wrong shall fail, the right prevail.” Twelve years later, English composer, John Baptiste Calkin, revised “Christmas Bells” leaving out the more overt references to war, making the message more universal and setting the text to the now familiar tune. So a poem born at the height of a conflict made the transition to Christmas carol.
I heard the bells on Christmas Day, their old familiar carols play.
And wild and sweet the words repeat of peace on earth, goodwill to men.
I thought how, as the day had come, the belfries of all Christendom
had rolled along at the unbroken song of peace on earth, goodwill 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, goodwill 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, goodwill to men.
Susan Daves
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