The Christmas Victory

Henry sat in quiet contemplation for a while, staring at Fanny's picture which stood before him on the desk.

Just then, the church bells began to chime. At first he regarded their ringing as an unwelcome interruption to his reverie and tried putting on ear muffs to deaden the sound. But then it seemed as if, in some sort of belfry conspiracy, more and more bells began to chime—bells from other churches—from all the churches in the area. They kept on ringing. The tunes they played were all the old familiar Christmas carols he had heard from his youth. But as they kept pealing, one phrase, from his conversation with Charles, kept going over and over in his mind: “Peace on earth, Goodwill to men, Peace on earth, Goodwill to men.” He removed the ear muffs and listened pensively to the lilting melodies of the bells pealing out the message of peace. He reached for his pen and began to write.

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.

With each passing moment it seemed as if more bells had joined the chorus. He continued to write:

I 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.

“But,” he thought, catching himself, “what am I writing this for? How can there be peace on earth when this war is dragging on?” He felt more strongly now the despair he had been feeling over Fanny's death, Charles’s injury and the war in general. Why had this war even started in the first place? It was all the fault of those slave owners in the south, he thought. He placed the ear muffs back on his ears and picked up his pen again. In anger and sarcasm he wrote the following verse:

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! 

He realized that he was fortunate to have Charles back alive. But what, he thought, of all the other families that lost sons and brothers in the war? He took up his pen again and wrote.

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! 

He bowed his head in despair. His own despair seemed to multiply as thought of the many families who had lost loved ones to the war, and then of his own loss of Fanny and of Charles' terrible injury. He again took up his pen and wrote:

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."
He put down his pen and rested his head on his arms on the desk. “It's no use,” he thought. “I can't publish a poem that ends like that and right now I can't imagine any other ending.” He crumpled up the paper and threw it into the waste basket beside his desk.