On this Christmas Day 2018 when the world seems so topsy-turvy, I give you the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, written on Christmas Day 1863 in the middle of the American Civil War. (It was published two years later, February 1865.) The poem starts out rather melancholy, moves to despair, and ends in hope.
May you find joy and hope in the notion that wrong shall fail and right prevail this holiday season. A voice, a chime, a chant sublime - Merry Christmas!
Christmas Bells
Christmas Bells
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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.”
