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"I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" is a Christmas carol based on the 1863 poem "Christmas Bells" by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. [1] The song tells of the narrator hearing Christmas bells during the American Civil War , but despairing that "hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men".
Title page illustration for an 1864 edition of Tales of a Wayside Inn. Tales of a Wayside Inn is a collection of poems by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.The book, published in 1863, depicts a group of people at the Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts, as each tells a story in the form of a poem.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. His original works include the poems "Paul Revere's Ride", "The Song of Hiawatha", and "Evangeline". He was the first American to completely translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and was one of the fireside poets from New England.
"Christmas Bells", a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that is the basis for the Christmas carol "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" Music
Longfellow's poem was taken as the first American epic to be composed of North American materials and free of European literary models. Earlier attempts to write a national epic, such as The Columbiad of Richard Snowden (1753–1825), ‘a poem on the American war’ published in 1795, or Joel Barlow 's Vision of Columbus (1787) (rewritten and ...
His other publications include Final Memories of H. W. Longfellow (1887), Vespers (1859), A Book of Hymns and Tunes (1860, revised 1876) and, with Samuel Johnson, he edited A Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotion (1846) and Hymns of the Spirit (1864). [6] Longfellow died in 1892 and is buried in Western Cemetery in Portland's West End.
Longfellow is also directly mentioned with a fictitious poem towards the end of Act I. [8] Lorenz Hart alludes to Longfellow's poem in the title song of the musical On Your Toes: Remember the youth 'mid snow and ice Who bore the banner with the strange device, Excelsior! This motto applies to folks who dwell In Richmond Hill or in New Rochelle,
Longfellow wrote the poem shortly after completing lectures on German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and was heavily inspired by him. He was also inspired to write it by a heartfelt conversation he had with friend and fellow professor at Harvard University Cornelius Conway Felton; the two had spent an evening "talking of matters, which lie near one's soul:–and how to bear one's self ...