In order to answer this question, we have to look at what was going on in the life of the lyrics’ author and in his times. Unlike many Christmas carols, we have a known author and date for the words. The words are from a poem of the same name by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow written in December of 1863, when the Civil War was still raging and the outcome anything but clear.
Longfellow had already suffered the loss of his wife Frances just two years before as a result of an accidental fire and had been left as a widower with six children. (Longfellow’s long beard starts from that tragedy, as he stopped shaving because of the severe facial burns he acquired while trying to rescue his wife.) As he was still grieving her death, his 18-year-old son, Charles, ran off to join the Union army. Longfellow had been strongly against his son’s doing this, but the young man said in a letter to his father that “I have tried hard to resist the temptation of going without your leave but I cannot any longer. I feel it to be my first duty to do what I can for my country and I would willingly lay down my life for it if it would be of any good.” Charles missed the battle of Gettysburg because of a bout of typhoid fever (which could easily have killed him) but was seriously wounded at in November, barely escaping paralysis from a bullet that missed his spine by less than an inch. He arrived back home on December 8, and while his father sat by Charles’ bedside he wrote his poem. Can’t you just imagine this scene, with Longfellow keeping watch, perhaps weeping, and having the lines of the poem come so vividly to mind that he felt moved to write them down? According to some sources he actually wrote the poem (or at least started it) on Christmas Day itself.
All of this information helps clarify the tone of the poem, but Longfellow’s viewpoint is even clearer when the two verses specifically referring to the war, verses that were omitted when the poem was put to music, are put in their rightful place between the third and fourth verses of the carol:
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!
Yet, in spite of all the tragedy and loss of the war, the bells keep pealing out their message of the ultimate triumph of good. Now the line in the final verse can be seen in its rightful context: “God is not dead; nor doth He sleep!”
The carol has a traditional tune that was composed in 1872; I include a fine performance below of that version. There’s also a tune written by Johnny Marks, the same man who wrote “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” A truly non-traditional arrangement of the Marks version is by Ken Clifton, a noted modern musical theater director whose latest credits include “South Pacific” and “Miss Saigon.” And there’s a third version of the song by a contemporary Christian music group, “Casting Crowns,” that’s also very beautiful. So you can imbibe Longfellow’s touching and beautiful words three different ways:
Here’s Longfellow’s complete so you can read all the verses in context:
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!”
©Debi Simons
