Christmas Bells (I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day)

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Christmas Bells” is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem of Christmas Day 1863, better known by its first line, “I heard the bells on Christmas Day,” in which the bells’ promise of peace is drowned out by the Civil War and then rings out again. Longfellow wrote the 35-line poem weeks after his son Charles was badly wounded in battle, and it later became one of America’s best-loved carols.

Our reading is that the poem earns its hope by admitting despair first. The two war stanzas that most hymnals leave out are the reason the final chorus lands.

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Summary · The Poem · Background · Analysis and Themes · Form and Technique · Notable Lines · Themes · FAQ
Glossary · In Popular Culture · Related Poems

Summary

On Christmas Day, the speaker hears church bells ringing the old message of “peace on earth, good-will to men.” He imagines that song rolling from belfry to belfry across the Christian world as the earth turns from night to day.

Then the cannon of the Civil War drown out the carols, and the war tears through American homes like an earthquake. In despair, the speaker says there is no peace on earth, because hate is too strong. But the bells ring louder, answering that God is not dead or asleep, and that right will win and peace will come.

The Poem

The text below follows The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, as transcribed by Project Gutenberg, where the poem appears among the poems of Flower-de-Luce.

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!”

Background

By Christmas 1863, Longfellow had lived through the worst years of his life. In July 1861, his wife, Fanny, died after her dress caught fire at their home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Longfellow was badly burned trying to save her, and the beard he wore for the rest of his life hid the scars. The Christmases that followed were painful ones for him.

In March 1863, his oldest son, Charles, then 18, left home without permission to join the Union Army. On November 27, 1863, at the Battle of Mine Run in Virginia, a bullet passed through Charles’s back, just missing his spine, and Longfellow traveled to Washington to bring him home to Cambridge. A few weeks later, on Christmas Day, he wrote “Christmas Bells.” It was first printed in the children’s magazine Our Young Folks in February 1865 and collected in Flower-de-Luce in 1867.

Analysis and Themes

The poem moves in three stages: the carol in its ideal form, the carol drowned by war, and the carol restored. Each stage is marked by what happens to the same refrain.

A Song That Circles the World

The first three stanzas build a large, hopeful picture. The bells play their “old, familiar carols,” the belfries of all Christendom join in “The unbroken song,” and the whole world turns from night to day to the sound of it. The key word is “unbroken.” For three stanzas, the message of the angels in Luke’s Gospel seems continuous and universal, passed from church to church around the globe.

The Cannon in the South

The fourth stanza breaks the song. “Then from each black, accursed mouth / The cannon thundered in the South,” and the carols are “drowned.” The cannon’s “mouth” is a grim parody of the singing mouths of the bells. The fifth stanza widens the damage: the war splits “The hearth-stones of a continent” like an earthquake, destroying the very households that were “born / Of peace.” For Longfellow, whose own hearth had been burned and whose son had just been shot, this was not an abstraction.

Despair, Then the Answer

In the sixth stanza, the speaker gives in: “There is no peace on earth,” he says, because “hate is strong, / And mocks the song.” It is the only stanza in which the refrain is spoken as a bitter quotation rather than a hope. Then the bells answer more “loud and deep”: “God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!” The line echoes Psalm 121, which promises that God “shall neither slumber nor sleep.” The last stanza does not deny the war. It insists that “The Wrong shall fail, / The Right prevail,” and the refrain changes from “Of peace” to “With peace,” a small shift that turns the song into a promise.

The Missing Stanzas

Most hymnals and recordings leave out stanzas four and five, the ones about the cannon and the earthquake. Without them, the carol becomes a gentle poem about doubt. With them, it is a poem about a nation at war and a father whose son had just been wounded, and the final hope is harder won.

Form and Technique

The poem has 35 lines in seven five-line stanzas. Lines 1, 2, and 5 of each stanza are iambic tetrameter, as in “i HEARD the BELLS on CHRIST-mas DAY,” and lines 3 and 4 are short dimeter lines, as in “and WILD and SWEET.” Each stanza rhymes in two couplets and closes on the refrain, so the pattern is AABBR, with R the repeated line.

The refrain, “Of peace on earth, good-will to men!,” comes from the angels’ song in Luke 2:14, and its repetition imitates the steady ringing of bells. Longfellow varies its meaning without changing its words until the very end: it is sung, then drowned, then mocked, then restored. The short middle lines work like the swing of a bell between strokes, and the rhymes on the dimeter lines, such as “sound” and “drowned,” land with extra force.

Notable Lines

These lines carry the poem from hope to despair and back.

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,

Lines 16 to 17

The turn of the poem. The war arrives in a single word, “Then,” and the cannon’s mouths answer the bells.

“There is no peace on earth,” I said:
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song

Lines 27 to 29

The low point. The speaker turns the angels’ promise into its opposite.

“God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,

Lines 32 to 34

The bells’ answer, and the most quoted lines of the poem. The hope is stated as faith, not as a report on the war.

Themes

Four ideas run through the poem.

Hope and despair. The poem gives despair a full stanza and a real voice before answering it, which is why the ending feels earned.

War and peace. The Civil War is the force that silences the Christmas message, and the poem’s peace is a promise for the future rather than a fact of the present.

Faith. The bells speak for a God who is neither dead nor asleep. Longfellow’s answer to suffering is trust that justice will win.

Christmas. The holiday is both comfort and challenge. Its message of peace is ancient and familiar, and the poem asks whether it can still be believed.

Frequently Asked Questions

These are the questions readers most often ask about “Christmas Bells” and “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”

Who wrote “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day”?

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the words as a poem called “Christmas Bells” on December 25, 1863. The best-known melodies were added later, by John Baptiste Calkin in 1872 and by Johnny Marks in 1956.

What is the story behind “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day”?

Longfellow wrote it during the Civil War, a month after his son Charles was badly wounded at the Battle of Mine Run and two and a half years after his wife died in a fire. The poem records his despair that there could be peace on earth, and his decision to hope anyway.

When was “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” written?

Longfellow wrote it on Christmas Day, December 25, 1863. It was first published in February 1865 in the magazine Our Young Folks.

What is “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” about?

It is about hearing the Christmas message of peace in the middle of a war. The speaker’s hope is drowned out by the Civil War and he falls into despair, but the bells answer that God is not dead and that right will win.

Why are some verses missing from the carol?

Most hymnals and recordings drop Longfellow’s fourth and fifth stanzas, which describe the cannon of the Civil War and the war tearing apart American homes. Those verses tie the poem closely to 1863, so they were left out when it became a general Christmas carol.

Glossary

A few words and phrases are worth pinning down.

• peace on earth, good-will to men (line 5): The angels’ song to the shepherds in Luke 2:14.
• belfries (line 7): Church towers or rooms where bells hang.
• Christendom (line 7): The Christian world.
• the South (line 17): The Confederate states, where most of the Civil War’s fighting took place.
• hearth-stones (line 22): The stone floors of fireplaces; figuratively, homes and families.
• forlorn (line 23): Abandoned and miserable.
• doth (line 32): Does.

In Popular Culture

The poem is far better known as a carol than as a poem.

The English organist John Baptiste Calkin set it to the tune “Waltham” in 1872, the version long sung in churches. In 1956, Johnny Marks, the songwriter behind “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” wrote a new melody, and Bing Crosby recorded it that October.

The carol has since been recorded by Harry Belafonte, Johnny Cash, and many others, and Casting Crowns’ 2008 version became a No. 1 hit on the Christian charts. The 2022 film I Heard the Bells dramatizes the Christmas of 1863 and the writing of the poem.

Related Poems

If this poem speaks to you, these are good to read next.

• In the Bleak Midwinter by Christina Rossetti: Another Christmas poem that refuses to pretend the world is warm.
• The Oxen by Thomas Hardy: A Christmas Eve poem that holds on to hope while doubting it.
• O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman: Another Civil War poem of grief, written for the death of Lincoln.
• Ring Out, Wild Bells by Alfred Tennyson: Bells again, ringing out the old year’s sorrows and ringing in a hoped-for peace.