I love Christmas carols. I love how, for about 6 weeks of the year, believers and non-believers alike are singing praises and glo-o-o-o-o-oooo-o-o-o-o-oooo-o-o-o-o-ooorias.
Secular radio stations are dashing through the snow to deck the halls, asking Santa Baby for yachts and diamond rings, and wondering how on earth Grandma could get run over by a reindeer.
But they are also proclaiming Therefore, Christian men, be sure, wealth or rank possessing, ye who now will bless the poor, shall yourselves find blessing.
And
O morning stars, together proclaim the holy birth! And praises sing to God the King, and peace to men on earth.
And
O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.
Even Charlie Brown sings “Glory to the newborn King”!
What kind of weird and wonderful world IS this?? That Christ’s name should be heard and sung by people who haven’t yet grasped the miraculous idea of God’s precious life-giving, soul-saving gift.
It makes me wonder as I wander, and giggle like a babe in Toyland.
Yet some could say that it isn’t the most wonderful time of the year, 2015. It’s not a yum-yummy world made for sweethearts. They would agree with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s words, “There is no peace on earth, I said”.
When Longfellow penned the words to his poem “Christmas Bells” on December 25, 1864, he was still grieving the death of his wife, Fanny. She had been fatally burned in an accident 3 years before, on the very same day that the first shot of the American Civil War was fired. In 1862 his journal entry for Christmas Day reads, “ ‘A merry Christmas’ say the children, but that is no more for me.”
In 1863 he learned that his oldest son, Charles, had been severely wounded in battle.
So in 1864, Longfellow’s world was not at peace either, and hadn’t been for years. What’s more, he had been personally affected by the war.
He wrote seven stanzas to his poem that Christmas Day in 1864. Two of them are never sung in our version of “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” but I think they are important to include because they give us a good idea of Longfellow’s world, which strikingly parallels our own. They help us to understand why he said, “there is no peace on earth”, and to remind us that “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep”.
In our writers group this month we were challenged to write a new verse to a favourite Christmas carol.
The words “there is no peace on earth, I said” resonated so much with me that I did some research on the song and then added my own verse at the end – my proclamation in response to the stanzas before it.
Christmas Bells
(Longfellow’s original poem, complete with all seven stanzas, and an extra one added at the end by Joy)
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!”
Now let me gather up my faith.
My God’s at work; His love is great.
Loud let bells ring,
And I will sing,
Of Peace on earth, good-will to men!
God is not dead, nor doth He sleep. He’s still at work. He’s still Love. He’s still in charge.
So rest ye merry, sojourners, let nothing you dismay. Remember, Christ, our Saviour, was born upon this day: to save us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray.
O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy.
O tidings of comfort and joy.
****************
This article first appeared at InScribe Writers Online , December 20, 2015.
(Edited)
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