A Poem for Independence Day By Ralph Waldo Emerson

By Robert Hass July 5, 1998

Here is the account of it from the Salem Gazette, April 25, 1775: "The troops came in sight just before sunrise . . . the Commanding Officer accosted the militia in words to this effect: 'Disperse, you rebels, damn you, throw down your arms and disperse'; upon which the [American] troops huzzaed, and immediately one or two [British] officers discharged their pistols, which were instantaneously followed by the firing of four or five soldiers, and then there seemed to be a general discharge from the whole body. Eight of our men were killed and nine wounded."

Here is the English version, from the London Gazette, June 10, 1775: "Six companies of light infantry . . . at Lexington found a body of the country people under arms, on a green close to the road. And upon the King's troops marching up to them, in order to inquire the reason of their being so assembled, they went off in great confusion. And several guns were fired upon the King's troops from behind a stone wall, and also from the meeting house and other houses . . . In consequence of this attack by the rebels, the troops returned the fire and killed several of them."

They read like today's newspapers: a skirmish between colonials and an occupying army, Israelis and Palestinians, Serbs and Albanians, Catholics and British soldiers in Belfast, each claiming the other fired first. By the beginning of the 20th century, the story was being told like this by the popular historian John Fiske in his 1901 The American Revolution: "Colonel Smith then sent Major Pitcairn forward with six companies of light infantry to make all possible haste in securing the bridges over Concord River . . . When Pitcairn reached Lexington, just as the rising sun was casting long shadows across the village green, he found himself confronted by some fifty minute-men under command of Captain John Parker, a hardy veteran who, fifteen years before, had climbed the heights of Abraham by the side of Wolfe. 'Don't fire unless you are fired on,' said Parker; 'but if they want a war, it may well begin here.' 'Disperse, ye villains!' shouted Pitcairn. 'Damn you, why don't you disperse?' And as they stood motionless, he gave the order to fire. As the soldiers hesitated to obey, he discharged his own pistol, and repeated the order, whereupon a deadly volley slew eight of the minute-men and wounded ten."

The most famous literary version of this moment is Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Concord Hymn." I heard President Clinton read it this spring at the White House during an evening celebrating American poetry. Emerson, who lived in Concord, wrote the poem – famous for one resonant line – 60 years after the event, on the occasion of a monument being placed at the site of the old bridge. I'll give it here with its full title:

HYMN: SUNG AT THE COMPLETION OF THE CONCORD MONUMENT

April 19, 1836

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 sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream that seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set today a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit that made these heroes dare
To die, or leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.

Robert Hass, former U.S. poet laureate, is the author, most recently, of the collection "Sun Under Wood."