A Carol You Will NOT Hear on Radio: Blessed Are the Peace-Makers

Most people do not know that Longfellow wrote the poem "Christmas Bells" during the U.S. Civil War.  Later on it was set to music with 2 of its stanzas missing (Bowdlerization!) and re-titled "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day".  Just before he wrote it, his wife had died in a house fire and his eldest son had gone into the Union Army.  Longfellow was also a part of the 19th century Transcendentalist Movement and was an Unitarian.
So without further ado, here is the complete "Christmas Bells."  May our prayers for peace and enlightenment come true.

 "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!

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!

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!

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!

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!"