Which Christmas carol was originally a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow written in 1863?

“I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” was originally Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1863 poem “Christmas Bells.”

Longfellow wrote the poem during the American Civil War, when the nation’s language of peace sharply conflicted with the reality of battlefield violence. The poem begins with Christmas bells and the hope of “peace on earth,” then turns to cannon fire, despair, and the feeling that war has drowned out the carols.

The poem was first published in February 1865 in the juvenile magazine Our Young Folks. Its final stanza restores hope, declaring that right will ultimately prevail even when hatred appears stronger.

The carol has been set to several melodies. John Baptiste Calkin’s tune, “Waltham,” became the long-standing standard after the poem was set to music in the nineteenth century. Johnny Marks supplied another widely known melody in 1956, so different recordings may sound noticeably unlike one another.