I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
"I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" is beautiful hymn to come out of nineteenth-century America though also out of the tragedy of the Civil War. American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had lost his wife to a house fire two years prior and then his oldest son, serving in the Civil War without Longfellow's permission, was seriously wounded in November 1863. In anguish, Longfellow wrote about hearing the Christmas bells, first mocking his grief, then bringing immense consolation, "of peace on earth, good-will to men". Though the poem is longer, here are the words traditionally used with the carol as it was set to J. Baptiste Calkin, in 1872. We used a soloist with two added voices as the carol grows in intensity:
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
and mild 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!
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."