"Concord Hymn" by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Concord Hymn 

       Sung at the Completion of the Battle Monument, 

       July 4, 1837

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

    Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood

    And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;

    Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;

And Time the ruined bridge has swept

    Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,

    We set to-day a votive stone;

That memory may their deed redeem,

    When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare

    To die, and leave their children free,

Bid Time and Nature gently spare

    The shaft we raise to them and thee.

Source of the text - Poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson, edited by J. Donald Adams.  New York: Thomas J. Crowell Company, 1965, page 69.

TJB: This ribbon-cutting poem, superego-driven & with iambics of stone, coins a now-famous phrase & spends its energy hoping the monument will age well.