Almost all Christmas carols convey hope, joy, and reverence, but “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” breaks this pattern and expresses some despair. The carol, based on a poem written by Henry ...

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 / ...

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 ...

The carol that we now know as “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” was originally a poem called “Christmas Bells” written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow during the Civil War. It is a song of hope that ...

And wild and sweet the words repeat, of peace on earth, goodwill to men. As we navigate this frantic season, and as we shake collective heads at collected headlines, I’d like to pause a moment and ...

One of the most well-known American poets, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, penned the words to the familiar Christmas carol, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” which was adapted from his 1864 poem, ...

He was sitting at his kitchen table in Cambridge, just across the Charles River, feeling the way a lot of us feel from time to time when life seems to squelch all the joy within us. And because it was ...