Sometimes “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” is described as depressing, especially since its second and third verses (as well as other stanzas usually not included in modern hymnals) do end in a rather dark tone. However, the full message of the song is one of hope renewed by the Christmas spirit.

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.

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 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.

The final verses of “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” however, completes the story on a note of hope repeating the refrain “of peace on earth, good will to men” without the irony and forlorn tone found in the other stanzas:

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.

The story behind this poem also begins on a sad note. Written during the American Civil War, the poem was inspired by tragedy in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s personal life: the death of his wife a few years before and the wounding of his son in battle much more recently. Apparently depressed that Christmas, Longfellow’s poem expresses the sadness he felt over his personal losses as well as the state of his nation.

However, the speaker of the poem (and presumably Longfellow himself) was reminded by a church’s bells on Christmas day that there is still hope in the world. Right would prevail, and the world would be made right again, with “peace on earth, good will to men.”

Just months after this poem was written, the Civil War came to an end.

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Read "Christmas Bells" and more of Wadsworth's beloved poems in the affordable volume, Favorite Poems or study his Complete Works.