Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) was an intensely public poet and an intensely private man. His own griefs, and they were considerable, barely make an appearance in all the large body of his ...

On Christmas Day 1863, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow sat in his chair at his writing table and began a poem. “I heard the bells on Christmas Day / Their old, familiar carols play, / and wild and sweet / ...

‘Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: / ‘God is not dead, nor doth He sleep,’” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow proclaims in the tremendous final verse of his 1865 Civil War poem “Christmas Bells.” We ...

“’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.” These words come from the first two lines of immensely popular poem “A Visit from St.

Few people can think about “Christmas bells” without humming along to the classic carol. However, the original poem the carol is based on has verses directly about the American Civil War that have ...

Seraphic Fire in December celebrates a candle-lit Christmas singing timeless carols – The First Noel, Joy to the World, Silent Night, Carol of the Bells – and a musical presentation […] The post ...