Can You Hear the Christmas Bells?

Five days ago I posted a blog article about Charles Dickens’s famous novella “A Christmas Carol.” This article is about a powerful Christmas poem Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote twenty years later, in 1863.

Longfellow (1807~82) was unquestionably one of the most famous American poets of the 19^th century. When I was in elementary school, I read some of his poems—which I assume is true for many of you. I am thinking particularly of “The Village Blacksmith” (1842) and “Paul Revere’s Ride” (1860).

Although I probably didn’t first read it until later, one of my favorite Longfellow poems is “A Psalm of Life” (1839). If you haven’t read that powerful poem recently, I encourage you to take a couple of minutes to click here and read it.

For those of you who like good novels, I highly recommend Jennifer Chiaverini’s delightful Christmas Bells (2015), which in alternating chapters toggles between the historical story of Longfellow in the 1860s and a contemporary fictional story set in Boston and features a children’s choir practicing “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” 

As you perhaps know, in the summer of 1861 Longfellow's beloved wife Fanny died of burns after her dress caught on fire. Then at the end of November 1863, his oldest son, Charley, was seriously wounded as a Union soldier. Still grieving greatly over Fanny’s untimely death, Longfellow was greatly shaken by news of his beloved son’s life-threatening injury.

According to the novel, just before Christmas 1863 as he worried about Charley’s survival, Longfellow felt Fanny's inspirational presence and penned the words to "Christmas Bells."

Before my final comments, I am sharing the full text of that impressive poem. I certainly hope you will read these words, slowly and thoughtfully. Or if you would prefer to listen to them sung, here is the link to Karen Carpenter singing some of the verses.

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!

Till 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!

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!

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.”

My sermon on Christmas Day in 1960 was titled “Was the Song Wrong?” (That was also the title of my first Christmas blog article, posted in Dec. 2009.)

The time of peace on earth, as sung by the angels and recorded in Luke 2:14, has certainly not come as yet, but those words remain as our hope for the future and our challenge for the present.

May each of us do what we can in the year ahead to bring peace on earth!

Merry Christmas!