Music for Christmas

Longfellow's poem "Christmas Bells," written on Christmas Day 1863, has over the years been set to two different melodies as the Christmas carol known by its first line, "I heard the bells on Christmas Day."  In the 1870s, a London composer and church organist named John Baptiste Calkin set it to a melody he had composed thirty years earlier; in the 1950s, Johnny Marks--an American Jewish songwriter who cranked out the Christmas hits "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," "A Holly Jolly Christmas," and "Rockin' around the Christmas Tree"--composed the setting more frequently heard today.

Still, there are a number of lovely recordings of the Calkin version out there, including this nice one by Elvis Presley and The Jordanaires.  What I've posted above, though, is the Marks version sung by the magnificent voice of Harry Belafonte.

All recorded versions I've heard omit the three verses of Longfellow's poem that tie it to the Civil War and thereby give it real depth.  Here's the whole poem; it's verses 3, 4, and 5 that get skipped:

I heard the bells on Christmas Day


Their old, familiar carols play,

and mild 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.