by Sarah Huth

Created on: July 09, 2008

Know mainly for his work with the Transcendentalist movement, many people choose to overlook the more patriotic side of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Born in 1803, Emerson was a famous American philosopher, poet, and essayist. He was considered one of the greatest public speakers of his time, and his ideals and philosophies greatly shaped the development of the "New Thought" movement during the mid 1800's. While Emerson's work mainly concentrates on the philosophies of the transcendentalists, focusing much on finding one's true self through nature, one of his most famous poems takes a completely different approach. It chooses to highlight a few moments in time, rather than to explore the inner-workings of the mind, taking the reader back to one of the most famous battles of the revolutionary war.

"Concord Hymn" was originally written for the dedication of the Obelisk in 1836. The Obelisk was a monument recognizing the Battle of Lexington and Concord (April 19th, 1775), which was the first battle of the American Revolution. Emerson himself could relate easily to this subject matter; his grandfather stood at the bridge where the British soldiers were defeated, and the family home where Emerson wrote the poem sat very close to the bridge. The hymn is sometimes sung to the tune of "Old Hundredth", as it was for the first time during Concord's 4th of July celebration in 1837.

The first four lines describe the battle itself, beginning with the famous bridge. He calls it "the rude bridge that arched the flood", which basically just means the "old" or "unfinished" bridge. He next describes the flag of the brave revolutionary soldiers, waving valiantly in April's breeze. The soldiers, he reminds us, are nothing but poor farmers, struggling to make their land their own. He references "the shot heard round the world", which is the traditional term for the first shot fired during the revolutionary war; it let the British, who were the most powerful nation at the time, know that they were dealing with a force to be reckoned with.

Emerson jumps ahead in lines five through eight, describing the ceremony that the poem was written for; the dedication of the Obelisk in 1836. When he speaks of "the foe long since in silence slept", he is referring to the enemy soldiers that were defeated during the battle, long dead and gone. In the next line he mentions "the conqueror", who also silently sleeps. This is a direct reference to the American soldiers who also lost their lives during the battle,

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