I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1864

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

“Christmas Bells” is divided into seven five-line stanzas, or cinquains, that are written in the rhyme scheme of AABBC. Most of the A and C lines of the poem are written in iambic tetrameter, or four sets of iambs (an iamb is a metrical foot consisting of one short, unstressed syllable followed by a long, stressed syllable). However, the B lines are generally four beats long. This even pace mimics the steady pace with which church bells ring. The poem also employs a repeating refrain—“of peace on earth, good will to men”—which appears without linear variation in Lines 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30, although enjambment does change meaning from stanza to stanza. The last line varies the refrain by replacing the “of” with the word “with” (Line 35). This is used to emphasize the meaning, showing that “the Right” (Line 34) works “with peace on earth, good will to men” (Line 35) on its side. The predictable meter helps to show the everlasting quality of the Christian message of the refrain. Changes in sound help to enhance the message and show the catastrophic conflict of war. The use of “[t]hen” (Line 31) in the final stanza indicates the emotional shift in the last stanza, setting up the epiphany which shoes the resurrection of Christian thought after the speaker’s struggle with despair.

Auditory Imagery

One of Longfellow’s key techniques in “Christmas Bells” is the use of auditory images. Initially, what is first heard is the “old, familiar” (Line 2) Christmas carols rung out by church bells. These bells are not to be taken for granted, as they create a “chant sublime” (Line 14) that is “wild and sweet” (Line 3) to the speaker. The repeated refrain of the carols is repeated at the end of each stanza and drives home the importance of Luke 2:14 (“peace on earth, good-will to men”). The speaker hears this message over and over again, and so does the reader. In this way, the “ringing, singing” (Line 11) of the bells reiterates the idea of faith as an overarching and “unbroken” (Line 9) call. This is momentarily put in jeopardy by the sound from “the South” (Line 17), which is destructive. Its “cannon thunder[s]” (Line 17) and “drown[s]” (Line 19) out the carols and their message. After Longfellow’s speaker decides that “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep” (Line 32), transcendent sound is resurrected as the “bells [peal] more loud and deep” (Line 31). In this way, the use of sound, as heard by the speaker, shows an insistence that “The Wrong shall fail, / The Right prevail” (Lines 33-34) as the bells are louder than the cannon. Longfellow’s auditory imagery enhances his speaker’s idea that the correct sound must be listened to and embraced.

Euphony and Cacophony

Longfellow enhances the tension in the poem by juxtaposing euphonic versus cacophonic phrasing. Euphony is the way in which words may have a pleasant sound while cacophony describes harsh sounding words or phrases. The first stanzas are dominated by many words that begin with “w,” and employ “l,” which helps to create a pleasing, soft, sound. For example, the “familiar carols play, / And wild and sweet, The words repeat” (Lines 2-4). By contrast, the heavy emphasis on hard “c” and “d” sounds shows aggression when Longfellow’s speaker describes the cannon fire. “[F]rom each black, accursed mouth / The cannon thundered in the South, / and with the sound / the carols drowned” (Lines 16-19). Here, the echo of cannon fire with its crack and thud gives the overall feeling of breakage caused by war. Euphony and cacophony are used strategically to emphasize the mood of the poem throughout.