A Voice, a Chime, a Chant Sublime

[Cross-posted to By Common Consent]

One hundred and sixty-one years ago, on Christmas Day 1863, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the poem “Christmas Bells.” This poem, of course, became the basis for the well-known--but not, in my observation, particularly popular--hymn, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day." It wasn't included in our Christmas program in our Mormon congregation this morning, and I wish it had been. 2024, and specifically those of us who have lived through it and must face its consequences, need it.

The poem that Longfellow wrote is inextricable from the Civil War, and the desperation and despair so many felt during those years. By late 1863, the war had dragged on for over 2 1/2 years, his oldest son had run away to join the Union army without his permission and had been gravely wounded in battle, and the horrors of Gettysburg—Lincoln had delivered his famous Address only a month prior—weighed down the country as a whole. Perhaps it is unsurprising that his reflections that Christmas morning were dark ones, with his final stanza perhaps suggesting more faithful determination than any actual hope:

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."

It is not Wadsworth greatest poem, but it is a good one. And in any case, within ten years the poem, in various versions, was being put to music. In the 20^th century, Bing Crosby recorded the song; so did The Carpenters. Both of them, like many other artists, dropped stanzas 3, 4, and 5; they removed the songs explicit invocations of the Civil War, and instead turned the poem into an abiding message of peace and good will—one that is doubted, briefly, in the next-to-last stanza, but is re-emphasized, both “more loud and deep” in the concluding one: “The Wrong shall fail!”

I am grateful that the version which made it into Mormon hymnbooks took a different approach—not an unknown one, but not, I think, the dominant one either. It is not, on the basis of decades of observation, an oft-sung Christmas song in American Mormon congregations, but it deserves better, if only because of the wisdom of the arranger in ordering the stanzas 1, 2, 6, 7, and then, and only then, 3. Far better for all of us—for everyone who lives, as we all must, as Longfellow himself did, through catastrophes large and small, through daily mistakes and passing triumphs, through rain that falls on the just and the unjust alike—to reflect upon the message which the miracle of the Incarnation, of God the Son being born as a human being, communicates…and then experience evil and suffer our doubts that’s God’s good message may ever be realized…and then be reminded that’s God’s love abides and calls to us despite all opposition…and then, finally, gird up our loins and begin again, day after day after day.

The Mormon hymnbook is currently being revamped--and if "I Heard the Bells" survives into the new version, I would wish for only two changes: turn “Till” to “Then,” and “revolved” to “revolves.” Embrace the idea that this hymn no longer, if it ever entirely was, one man’s Christmas determination to keep hoping though his nation’s greatest peril, but is now rather a benediction on the message of Christmas, a summation as well as an invitation. Yes, the wrong shall fail, but the defeat of the wrong is something God does with us, through us, day after day, year after year, lifetime after lifetime. As the man said, the bells still ring—still sing, still chime, still chant on their call, their eternal, abiding reminder of God's grace and peace--for those who believe.

Then, ringing, singing, on its way,
The world revolves from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime,
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

 Merry Christmas!