A poem made into music - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

This famous Christmas poem has been sung by many. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow  (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. He was  the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy.  Longfellow wrote lyric poems known for their musicality and which often presented stories of mythology and legend. He became the most popular American poet of his day and also had success overseas.

Unbeknownst to many, Longfellow's poem, "I heard the bells on Christmas Day", has its roots in the American Civil War. The fourth and fifth stanzas, which refer to the war, have been left out of the carol. Longfellow wrote the piece on Christmas Day in 1863. Right before writing the poem, the poet suffered the death of his wife of eighteen years in a house fire, and shortly afterwards, his son ran off and joined the army and was later wounded when the American Civil War broke out. The author too felt the despair but, as the poem suggests, he found his peace soon. 

Here are three versions. The modern version is by Usher.

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I heard the bells on Christmas day

Their old familiar carols play, And wild and sweet the words repeat 

Of peace on earth, goodwill 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, goodwill 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, goodwill 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, goodwill 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, goodwill 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, goodwill 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, goodwill to men.'