As an editor of a poetry magazine, I have read thousands of poems in my nineteen years on the job, and not all of them are worth even the time it takes to read them. But then, there are these. These are the poems that changed my days, my ways, my life, or my mind.

4.04.2012

Concord Hymn by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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 spirits dare,
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.


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[poem is in the public domain]

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