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.”

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.”

I thought to myself, what a raw and honest lyric. Not something you'd normally see in a Christmas song. I decided to Google the history behind the song to understand the source of the anguish expressed within. The carol was originally a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow written on December 25th, 1864 during the Civil War - still months away from Lee's surrender at Appomattox. That partially explains the despair in the song as well as the stanzas omitted when the poem was transformed into a Christmas carol:

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.

Christmas during wartime must be so difficult for our armed servicemen and women. National Review has a few articles about Christmas at wartime right now. One about Lincoln and Christmas in 1863, a year before Longfellow penned this poem. There's another about General Patton's prayer on Christmas Eve of 1944.

A little more research on Longfellow's poem reveals that the source of despair was a combination of the war and his wife Fanny's death the previous year as she was cutting their daughter Edith's hair:

After trimming some of seven year old Edith's beautiful curls, Fanny decided to preserve the clippings in sealing wax. Melting a bar of sealing wax with a candle, a few drops fell unnoticed upon her dress. The longed for sea breeze gusted through the window, igniting the light material of Fanny's dress-- immediately wrapping her in flames. In her attempt to protect Edith and Allegra, she ran to Henry's study in the next room, where Henry frantically attempted to extinguish the flames with a nearby, but undersized throw rug. Failing to stop the fire with the rug, he tried to smother the flames by throwing his arms around Frances-- severely burning his face, arms, and hands. Fanny Longfellow died the next morning. Too ill from his burns and grief, Henry did not attend her funeral.

Experiencing that against the backdrop of the Civil War reveals the depths of despair from which Longfellow penned his words. What amazes me, however, is how he still holds onto hope in God in this darkest of times. Shall we do the same today? God is alive. God is good. God has extended his goodwill to the people of this earth through his son Jesus Christ and in Him we can have hope in the eternal. Let us hold onto this hope in the dark days of our own lives and of our nation, and let us pray that the Lord leads us to victory.

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men!" Luke 2:14