I Heard the Bells of Christmas Day

(Written by Tom Stewart)

One of America's best known poets, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), penned this particular carol sung each Christmas season, when he composed the words to "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" on December 25, 1864.  "Glory to God in the Highest, and on Earth peace, good will toward men" (Luke 2:14).  The carol was originally a poem, "Christmas Bells," containing seven stanzas.  Two stanzas were omitted which contained references to the American Civil War, thus giving the carol its present form.  The poem gave birth to the carol, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," and the remaining five stanzas were slightly rearranged in 1872 by John Baptiste Calkin (1827-1905), who also gave us the memorable tune.  When Longfellow penned the words to his poem, America was still months away from Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9th 1865; and, his poem reflected the prior years of the war's despair, while ending with a confident hope of triumphant peace. 

As with any composition that touches the heart of the hearer, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" flowed from the experience of Longfellow--involving the tragic death of his wife Fanny and the crippling injury of his son Charles from war wounds.  "My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned: then spake I with my tongue" (Psalm 39:3).  Henry married Frances Appleton on July 13th 1843, and they settled down in the historic Craigie House overlooking the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  They were blessed with the birth of their first child, Charles, on June 9, 1844, and eventually, the Longfellow household numbered five children--Charles, Ernest, Alice, Edith, and Allegra.  "Children's children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers" (Proverbs 17:6).  Alice, the Longfellow's third child and first daughter, was delivered, while her mother was under the anesthetic influence of ether--the first in North America.  "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the Earth, and subdue it: and have dominion..." (Genesis 1:28).

Tragedy struck both the nation and the Longfellow family in 1861.  Confederate General Pierre G.T. Beauregard fired the opening salvos of the American Civil War on April 12th, and Fanny Longfellow was fatally burned in an accident in the library of Craigie House on July 10th.  The day before the accident, Fanny Longfellow recorded in her journal: "We are still sighing for the good sea breeze instead of this stifling land one filled with dust.  Poor Allegra is droopy with heat, and Eddie has to get her hair in a net to free her neck from the weight.  After trimming some of seven year old Edith's beautiful curls, Fanny decided to preserve the clippings in sealing wax.  Melting a bar of sealing wax with a candle, a few drops fell unnoticed on her dress.  The sea breeze gusted through the window, igniting the light material on Fanny's dress and she was in flames.  Henry tried to put out the flames by throwing his arms around Frances--severely burning his face, arms, and hands.  Fanny Longfellow died the next morning.  As a result, Henry grew the trademark beard due to the burns he received on his face. 

The first Christmas after Fanny's death, Longfellow wrote, "How inexpressibly sad are all holidays."  A year after the incident, he wrote, "I can make no record of these days.  Better leave them wrapped in silence.  Longfellow wrote in his journal on December 25, 1862 "A merry Christmas say the children, but that is no more for me."  Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance" (Psalms 42:5). Almost a year later, Lonfellow received word that his oldest son Charles, a lieutenant in the Army of the Potomac, had been severely wounded with a bullet passing under his shoulder blades and taking off one of the spinal processes.  The Christmas of 1863 was silent in Longfellow's journal.  Finally on Christmas Day of 1864, he wrote the words of the poem, "Christmas Bells."  The re-election of Abraham Lincoln or the possible end of the terrible war may have been the occasion for the poem.  Lt. Charles Longfellow didn't die that Christmas, but lived.  So, contrary to popular belief, the occasion of writing that much loved Christmas carol was not due to Charles' death.  Longfellow's Christmas bells loudly proclaimed "God is not dead."  "The LORD liveth, in Truth, in judgment, and in Righteousness; and the nations shall bless themselves in Him, and in Him shall they glory" (Jeremiah 4:2)  Even more the bells announced, "Nor doth He sleep."  "Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep" (Psalm 121:4).  God's Truth, Power, and Justice are affirmed, when Longfellow wrote: "The wrong shall fail, the right prevail."  "To finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in Everlasting Righteousness" (Daniel 9:24).  The message that the Living God is a God of Peace is proclaimed in the close of the carol: "Of peace on Earth, good will to men." 

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 blank 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!"