I have spent most of my life acknowledging the importance of Christ’s birth, apart however, from the traditionally specified time of year. Because of this unique experience, I am able to view all the associated cultural and religious accoutrements from a different perspective than those raised with early memories of the season. This morning I came across a song that I’d heard of before, but never read all the words to. Noting the time that this song was written makes me wonder what the author, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, would have penned were he alive today:

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.
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.”

Historical Note: This hymn was written during the American civil war, as reflected by the sense of despair in the next to last stanza of the current, common presentation (above). The original stanzas 4 and 5 (below) speak of the battle, and are usually omit­ted from hymnals:

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.