Christmas Carols and Their Stories
Puzzle 51 · American Carols · Page 75 in print
I Heard the Bells
Longfellow’s “Christmas Bells” was first sung as a hymn in Pure Diamonds, an 1872 songbook edited by James R. Murray, to a tune by J. W. Shryock that has not lasted.
Jump to a word
The words
Belfries
The belfries of Christendom named in Longfellow’s poem.
Brattle Street
Cambridge street of the Longfellow family home.
Calkin
John Baptiste Calkin, London organist who composed Waltham.
Cannon
The cannon that thunder in the South in the poem.
Cavalry
The 1st Massachusetts Cavalry, in which Charley was a lieutenant.
Charley
Charles Appleton Longfellow, the poet’s son wounded in 1863.
Christendom
The Christian world whose belfries ring in the poem.
Civil War
The war that forms the background of the poem.
Fanny Appleton
Frances Appleton Longfellow, the poet’s wife, who died in 1861.
Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, author of the poem Christmas Bells.
Mount Auburn
Cemetery where Fanny Longfellow was buried in 1861.
New Hope Church
Virginia settlement near which Charley was wounded during the Mine Run Campaign, 1863.
Rapidan
Virginia river named in Longfellow’s letter about his son’s wound.
Riverside
The 1886 Riverside Edition of Longfellow’s works, which dates the poem 1864.
Waltham
John Baptiste Calkin’s tune, now usual for the carol.
Sources
- The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Riverside Edition, vol. 3 (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1886), archive.org scanInternet Archive
- U.S. National Park Service, Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters NHS, “Charles A. Longfellow in the Civil War”National Park Service
- Hymnology Archive (Chris Fenner, ed.), “I heard the bells on Christmas Day”Hymnology Archive
- Samuel Longfellow, Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, vol. 2 (Boston: Ticknor, 1886), archive.org scanInternet Archive