25 Poems of Christmas: December 28

I read today on my "useless Knowledge" widget that henry Wadsworth Longfellow was the very first American to have indoor plumbing.  while that has nothing at all to do with Christmas or poetry, it made me think to post this poem, which you will know as the lovely and well-known Christmas song.  Longfellow was wildly popular both in his day,  and for many decades after his death, but he has since fallen out of vogue.  Shame, really, but I still love this poem, Stanzas four and five you will not recognize, but they give away the poem as having been written during the Civil War.  


I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


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.”