This poem, part of the longer epic narrative poem "The Song of Hiawatha," tells an origin story of the peace-pipe of the indigenous Americans from (shortly) before the European settlers arrived. Wooing of Hiawatha - Currier and Ives based on Longfellow. Then from each black, accursed mouth The cannon thundered in the South, And with the sound The carols drowned Of peace on earth, good-will 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, good-will to men!
Before that cry of despair and answering cry of hope, and after verses describing the long years of hearing of "peace on earth, goodwill to men" (a phrase from the Jesus birth narratives in the Christian scriptures), Longfellow's poem includes, describing the black cannons of the war: The original also included several verses referring specifically to the Civil War. The verses which he included and are still generally included, speak of the despair of hearing the promise of "peace on earth, goodwill to men" when the evidence of the world is clearly that war still exists.Īnd 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, good-will 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, good-will to men." Longfellow wrote this on Christmas Day in 1863, after his son had enlisted in the Union's cause and had returned home, seriously wounded. The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in the middle of the Civil War, wrote this poem which has more recently been adapted as a modern Christmas classic.
Bombardment of Fort Fisher, near Wilmington, New York, 1865.
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