December 31

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

by Ronnie Patton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akKItqRxF30

It was Christmas 1863. The Civil War was raging, and the casualties were horrific. The streets of Cambridge Massachusetts were dark and cold. So was the spirit of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Two years earlier he had lost his wife in a fire. He was badly burned, and he grew a beard to hide his scars. A widower with six children, he was now nursing his oldest son who had been seriously wounded in the war. Longfellow was a devout Christian, but in his pain he wrote, “How inexpressibly sad are all holidays. Better leave them wrapped in silence. Perhaps someday God will give me peace.”

Eventually his depression lifted, and he wrote the poem “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” using the metaphor of church bells to describe his transformation. Unlike many Christmas songs, this one is raw and real. It doesn’t cover the world with holly and tinsel.

At the beginning of the poem, church bells pealed Christmas tidings, but Longfellow felt that the bells mocked the message of the angels. There wasn’t much room for peace on earth and 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!”

At the end of the poem, the resonant sound of the bells symbolizes his recovery from despair to a confident hope.

 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.” 

The world is as broken and painful today as it was in Longfellow’s time. But the miracle of Christ’s birth is our promise of a joyous time to come.