Free Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas by Ace Collins

Yet when he wrote, “Believe me, every man has his secret sorrows, which the world knows not; and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad,” Longfellow was surely writing from his own experiences. He knew what it was like to be down and forlorn.
    During the nineteenth century—a time when many Americans were first-generation immigrants—Longfellow’s family had already been on American shores for several generations. The first Longfellow came to America from Yorkshire, England, in 1676. Among Henry’s fabled ancestors were John and Priscilla Alden, as well as an uncle who was a colonial general in the Revolutionary War. Henry was the son of well-known New England lawyer Stephen Longfellow. Born in 1807 in the picturesque seaport of Portland, Maine, the boy first went to school at the age of three. By six, he was alreadyreading classical literature and writing stories. At the tender age of nineteen, the college graduate was given the position of professor of modern language at Bowdoin College. In this role, he not only taught during school terms but also traveled and studied in Europe.
    A man of the world by twenty-two, Longfellow wrote his own textbooks. Married in 1831, by 1834 Henry was already viewed as one of his country’s most respected scholars. It was hardly a surprise when Harvard wooed him away from Bowdoin. With a wonderful wife, a dynamic reputation, and a fine house overlooking the Charles River, Henry seemed to have it all. Yet, tragically, within a year of his move to Massachusetts, his wife became ill and died.
    In an effort to deal with his grief, a mournful Longfellow poured himself into his teaching. It took seven years before he recovered enough from his loss to remarry. With a new love as his foundation, the good life returned to the scholar. One after another, the Longfellows welcomed five children into their home. During this happy period Longfellow wrote such classic poems as “Evangeline,” “The Song of Hiawatha,” and “The Courtship of Miles Standish.” By 1860 he had found wealth and worldwide fame, lionized as one of the greatest writers ever produced by the New World.
    However, at the very moment when Henry should have been celebrating the joys brought by his talents, financial security, and stature, tragedy again struck. In spite of being given honorary degrees at Oxford and Cambridge, and an invitation to Windsor by Queen Victoria, 1861 was a year filled with great sadness. While lighting a match, Longfellow’s second wife’s clothes caught fire and she burned to death. Then, even before he could regain his stride, his faith was again challenged by the American Civil War.
    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.
    I thought how, as the day had come,
    The belfries of all Christendom
    Had rolled along th’unbroken song
    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 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.
    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.”
    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!
    Longfellow hated the Civil War. It tore at the very fiber of his being to see the United States of America—a nation his family had fought to create and help build—divided by the greed and sinful nature of man. An ardent believer in the power of God to move on