I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day: A FREE Poetry Download from SAW Publishing
“I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play . . .”
Maybe, deep down, that’s what we’re all shrinking from, just a little, when we think about Christmas 2020.
After all, Christmas is about the familiar. It’s about the bells that have been ringing for centuries. It’s about the carols we learned before we could sing. It’s about peace, and hope, and warmth, and togetherness.
Then what do you do with Christmas in the midst of a war?
Because we are in the midst of a war—every one of us. Maybe it’s a war against sickness and suffering. Maybe it’s a war against grief and loss. Maybe it’s a war against the nameless terrors of an unknown future. Maybe it’s a war against the loneliness in our own hearts.
Can there be a greater tragedy than a wartime Christmas? At yet, can there be a greater mercy than a Christmas in the midst of a war?
Today’s FREE poetry download features one of the greatest Christmas poems of all time—Henry W. Longfellow’s famous Civil War carol, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” It’s a poem that poses this very question. And that brings home with blessed power the heart of the answer.
SAW Publishing’s FREE Monthly Downloads
As we have already mentioned in previous posts, for the calendar year of 2020 SAW Publishing is planning to offer FREE monthly downloads showcasing good and great literature from the authors of past generations. It may be worth clarifying that while the short stories in this series are for the most part geared towards child/family reading, the poems are in general more on a level with high school scholars or general students of poetry.
In evaluating the poems offered in these downloads, we will be using our good and great poetry grading worksheet. This tool was developed by SAW Publishing to facilitate simple, consistent, percentage-based grading of a wide range of poems and poetry assignments. A download of our grading of “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” is available at the bottom of this post.
We’ll also be following our standard literature model by highlighting a few good and great characteristics that stand out in this poem.
Good Characteristics
Perhaps the most valuable characteristic of “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” from a spiritual perspective is its transparent honesty. Christmas is, as Longfellow repeats with the closing of each verse, the time of “peace on earth, good will to men.” And yet the reality of our broken world sometimes transposes these words into something that feels perilously close to brutal mockery.
“I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” captures with masterful power the tragedy of Christmas in the midst of suffering. It juxtaposes with vivid reality the angelic song of peace on earth, and the heart-wrenching discord of a nation divided by bitter strife.
And yet, as the final verse draws out again the message that Longfellow hears in the familiar sound of Christmas chimes—“I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” is still a song of hope.
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.”
It was message that the world needed to hear when Longfellow first penned the words in the midst of the American Civil War. It is a message that we need to hear today.
Great Characteristics
“I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” is a literary masterpiece on so many different levels.
The entire seven-stanza piece is absolutely flawless in metre and absolutely flawless in rhyme. Longfellow has vividly captured for us an intense historical snapshot—and then handed that fleeting image down to the ages with a power that finds an answering chord in thousands of hearts to this day. And he has done all this in flowing, lilting verse that makes the rhyming of four-syllable half-lines sound effortless!
“I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” is one of my very favourite of all classic poems. In my opinion it is must-read for every high school literature or American history course. And if you have somehow got through high school without reading it—then sit down and do it today!
How to Read “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” for Maximum Effect
One imported detail should be noted in reading this poem. The majority of hymnals, for obvious reasons, have omitted the highly Civil-War focused fifth and sixth verses. In so doing, they have also typically transposed verse four to the end of the piece. While this works fairly well in some senses, it also distorts the image Longfellow is trying to portray.
Read as a cohesive whole, verses three and four give us a vivid picture of Christmas morning dawning in each successive country as “the earth revolves from night to day.” We hear the Christmas chimes that greet the dawn as it peeps over every horizon, rolling around the globe in a triumphant wave—until, with tragic fatality, we collide with the imagery of verses five and six.
As the sun rises over North America, Longfellow discovers that the thunder of canon-fire—the symbol of strife, the symbol of suffering, the symbol of hate—has drowned out the peal of the Christmas bells. The earthquake which is still trembling beneath his feet as Longfellow writes, is rending the hearth-stones of a continent. It is defying the message of the angels’ song.
If reading all seven stanzas in order doesn’t send shivers up your spine, I don’t know what will!
Can You Hear the Christmas Bells that Ring Today?
Christmas 2020. I want you to hear the bells that ring. Yes, you can hear the thunder. Yes, you can feel the earthquake trembling under your feet. I don’t want for one moment to invalidate all the pain each one of you is facing right now.
But the bells are still ringing.
The angels are still singing.
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.”
It was true then. It is true now. May God bring it home with precious strength to each of us, this Christmas.
Get your FREE copy of “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” by Henry W. Longfellow
Download SAW Publishing’s Grading Sheet of “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day”
If you have been enjoying SAW Publishing’s monthly downloads, you are going to love our surprise for December 2020! Come back next Monday to find out what it is!
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<33 I love that poem.
Me too, Katja!
Much as I love poetry (Longfellow in particular), I’m not sure I’ve read this poem before. So thank you for sharing! I know I will enjoy it!
Oh, I’m so glad, Natalie! I first heard it at a Christmas Day service at a relative’s church a number of years back – but if I hadn’t come across it there, I don’t know when I’d have discovered it, either!