Christmas 2006

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

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.”


The words to this carol were originally written as a poem, “Christmas Bells,” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1864 just months before the end of the American Civil War. The poem originally contained two extra stanzas that were omitted by John Baptiste Calkin in 1872, who added the music and transformed Longfellow’s poem into the carol we know today.