I heard the bells (Herbert Brewer)
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- Editor: Sebastiaan Schippers (submitted 2006-09-05). Score information: A4, 1 page, 92 kB Copyright: CPDL
- Edition notes:
General Information
Title: I heard the bells
Composer: Herbert Brewer
Lyricist: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1864
Number of voices: 4vv Voicing: SATB
Genre: Sacred, Carol
Language: English
Instruments: Keyboard or a cappella
Published:
Description: Verses 4-5 usually omitted, due to specific referrences to the Civil War.
External websites:
Original text and translations
English text
- 1.
- I heard the bells on Christmas day
- Their old familiar carols play,
- And wild and sweet the words repeat
- Of peace on earth, good will to men.
- 2.
- And thought how, as the day had come,
- The belfries of all Christendom
- Had rolled along the unbroken song
- Of peace on earth, good will to men.
- 3.
- Till ringing, singing on its way
- The world revolved from night to day,
- A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
- Of peace on earth, good will to men.
- 4.
- 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.
- 5.
- 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.
- 6.
- 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, good will to men.”
- 6.
- 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.”