“Christmas Bells,” a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ranks among my favorites during the Christmas season.

It ranks up there with “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and my wife’s breakfast casserole, which she prepares for Christmas morning.

Longfellow wrote many other poems, including “Paul Revere’s Ride” and “Hiawatha” that some may recall from their school years.

But I never read “Christmas Bells” in a schoolbook. When I was a youngster, a laminated copy of the poem was unpacked in the weeks before Christmas. It was a small piece of paper, but somehow Ma Davis keeps up with it and the poem finds its way to the refrigerator, next to a poster of Garfield in a Santa hat, every year.

The poem begins:

“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.”

But there was little peace at the time. Longfellow penned those words on Christmas Day in 1864, when the American Civil War had reached its third year. The original poem included stanzas about the war, which were dropped to create the better-known Christmas carol, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”

The poet was also reeling from the death of wife Fanny, who had died in 1861. She was using hot wax to seal a child’s lock of hair in an envelope when her dress caught fire, possibly from a lit candle.

  Longfellow was severely burned when he used his body to douse the flames. It was said he wore a beard because the burns to his face prevented him from shaving. Fanny died the next day.

In 1862, on Christmas Day, he wrote in his diary entry, “Perhaps someday God will give me strength.”

A year later, again on Christmas Day, he wrote of his children: “A ‘merry Christmas’ says the children, but that is no more for me.”

A year after that diary entry, he wrote “Christmas Bells,” pouring out a heart wrenched by war and the death of his wife:

“And in despair I bowed by 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.”  

 

Like the poet, you may think of a loved one who has passed on, who is taken from your arms, and from sitting in the living room, in their favorite chair, on Christmas mornings.

But that is why Christmas is important, to you and me, and to Henry Longfellow and his wife.   

Peace has come, and will come again, and Right will prevail when the trumpet sounds.

(Post script: my favorite version of “I Heard the Bells…” is a live version by Casting Crowns. You can find it on Youtube. Enjoy! –BD)