American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) is renowned for the musicality of his verses, and “Christmas Bells” is no exception. The 1863 poem—the first stanza is excerpted above ...

So “Resignation” lectures us, its depersonalized “we.” Today’s Poem of the Day, “Christmas Bells,” is on every level a better and more interesting poem than “Resignation.” As the bells ring out for ...

Like millions of Americans, this Christmas season, we will gather with our whole family in Indiana. With two of our kids’ families in active-duty military service, it has been three long years ...

"I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" is a poem by seminal American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow set to music, most popularly by Johnny Marks. The song laments a world filled with sorrow and ...

Dear Readers: Wishing you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas. “Christmas Bells” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1863 I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play ...

Then Christmas 1863 arrived ... as division widens. Do we listen to bells, or cannons? As the poem builds to a conclusion, Longfellow makes a decision. He chooses faith in the ultimate triumph ...

allowing myself the liberty to include a couple of winter poems that are not strictly on a Christmas theme, much as we allow ourselves to listen to Jingle Bells and Winter Wonderland during the ...