Back to: The Twelve Days of Christmas Carols
1 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.
2 I thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along th’unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
3 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.”
4 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.”
5 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.
Other verses
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!
In the original seven stanzas of “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” Longfellow focused on Christmas during the Civil War. In his lines one can easily sense the writer’s views of slavery and secession; his words divide the war into an effort of God’s love and understanding against the devil’s hate and anger.
It would have been a poem completely void of hope if he had not finished the last two verses. The text ends, however, with a final ringing of the bells that proclaim the message that God is alive, that right will prevail with peace on earth and good will to men.
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep. The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, goodwill to men.” This was a poem that would inspire not only the Union, but soon the whole world.