During the Civil War, the American poet,
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, comprised a poem that has become one of my most beloved Christmas carols. The carol itself we know as
"I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day", the same song which I feature on my profile. Well, not the exact same song since this is more of a cover done by the band singing it.
But it's the original poem that I find so beautiful; the two stanzas that refer to the Civil War itself were omitted in the arrangement of the carol. I believe that the whole poem still speaks to where many of us are today. Longfellow wrote this poem during the height of national and personal despair; the war was raging hot and furious throughout the country, and Longfellow had lost his wife to illness and his son nearly died from a gunshot wound in the war. How true it rings, the verse that says, "For hate is strong and mocks the song / Of peace on earth, goodwill to men."
This song reminds me of the soldiers in the U.S. armed forces who are still overseas in Iraq, Afghanistan, and all over the world. Sheesh, let's go beyond that, I mean, what about the soldiers from other countries? What about the crimes of greed, lust, hate, fear, all the corruption and debauchery and despair that festers in the world? How can life be so beautiful and yet so horrible?
...It's so easy to give in to despair; I'm frightened when I think of what it can do to a person.
So many people are determined to write off Christmas as a commercialized holiday with no soul. Despite the presence of commercialization, the spirit of the holiday, of the holy day, still endures. We NEED Christmas to remind each other and ourselves to be self-forgetful, to look to others, most of all to God Himself.
How beautifully simple, how easily taken for granted, is the simple chant, the prayer of "Peace on earth, goodwill to men."
"Christmas Bells"
(The original poem, complete with all seven stanzas)
"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!"
Merry Christmas, to all my friends and family, and to those who I've never met. n_n
Philetus
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