At this time of the year, we are bombarded by holiday music.  Some stations have had Christmas music nonstop since the end of November.  Perhaps, like me, you find yourself singing along once in a while with one of your favorites.  Perhaps certain songs bring back a special Christmas memory.  Perhaps, by now, you have just become numb as all the songs have just blended into white noise in the background.

Yet, even though we cannot get away from the Holiday songs, do we really “hear” them?  Even though we might sing along with the lyrics, do we really “know” them?  One song comes to my mind today.  It is a song that you hear occasionally this time of year, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”  

This lyrics were written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Christmas Day 1863.  He wrote at a time that this country was torn by Civil War and just several weeks after his son had been severely wounded in the war.  He wrote it not too long after he had lost his wife in an accidental fire.  Mr. Wadsworth’s world was not full of candy canes and gum drops, it was full of hurt and pain just like the world that we live in.  Yet, he did not let his gloom get the best of him, he struggled on until he could hear those “bells peal more loud and deep.”  This Christmas Eve my wish to you is that you might hear “a voice, a chime, a chant sublime, Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

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.

I 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.

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.”

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!