Christmas and tragedy: ‘The wrong shall fail, the right prevail’
Church bells (Creative Commons photo)
In the news business you see a lot of heartbreak and tragedy. You don’t have to look hard to find it. A 2-year-old little girl was killed last Sunday in a drive-by shooting in New Orleans. There aren’t words that can erase something like that.
My own mind is sometimes haunted by the faces and names of families I’ve written or published stories about over the years who have had loved ones violently ripped from them. When I hear Andy Williams belting out “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” at Christmastime I think how horribly gut-wrenching that song must be for people who have lost that last strand of hope.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow statue in Framingham, Mass. (Creative Commons photo)
On Dec. 25, 1864, much of our country knew that hopelessness. The Civil War had raged on for three years bloodying the countryside. Many families had lost multiple loved ones. Soldiers who had survived had witnessed carnage no one should ever know. It was on that day that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote “Christmas Bells,” a poem that would later be set to music to become “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”
Amid the season’s “Jingle Bells” and “Frosty the Snowman” it has always stood out to me as a holy carol that taps into our spiritual yearning for redemption and hope. Hope that no matter how dark the skies grow, the injustices of this world will one day be swept away. Right will prevail.
Longfellow’s original poem:
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!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.”
Merry Christmas.
-
Eric
