I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

For those who read “Christmas Bells” as an outpouring of Longfellow’s personal emotions, its conclusion offers similarities to an idea that he articulated in a much earlier poem about grief called “The Light of Stars” (1839). In that poem’s concluding lines (See: Further Reading & Resources), the speaker discusses how “sublime a thing it is / to suffer and be strong” (“The Light of Stars,” Lines 35-36). “Christmas Bells” discusses how, after multiple crises, the speaker finds determination to believe that “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep” (Line 32). 

Multiple crises beset Longfellow in the early 1860s, but the first and most heartbreaking was the death of his beloved wife Fanny by fire. In letters, Longfellow remarked on the horror of the moment in which he tried to tamp out the flames which had consumed Fanny’s dress, causing her fatal burns. As the holidays of early 1860s rolled around, he could hardly enjoy them, noting, “How inexpressibly sad are all holidays!” (Meyer, Don. “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” Huffington Post, 2013). This sense of doom was not lightened by the war at hand. Longfellow, a lifelong lover of American democracy, as well as an abolitionist, was disturbed by the fractures in the United States caused by the institution of slavery.