In October 1834, Emerson went to live with his step-grandfather Ezra Ripley in Concord, at what was later named The Old Manse— less than a hundred paces from the spot where the battle took place. In 1835, he purchased a home on the Cambridge and Concord Turnpike and quickly became one of Concord's leading citizens. That same year he was asked to give a public lecture commemorating the town's 200th anniversary. The "Concord Hymn" was written at the request of the Battle Monument Committee. At Concord's Independence Day celebration on July 4, 1837, it was first read, then sung as a hymn by a local choir using the then-familiar tune "Old Hundredth". The poem elevates the battle above a simple event, setting Concord as the spiritual center of the American nation, removes specific details about the battle itself, and exalts a general spirit of revolution and freedom— a spirit Emerson hoped would outlive those who fought in the battle. One source of the hymn's power may be Emerson's personal ties to the subject: his grandfather William Emerson, Sr., witnessed the battle at the North Bridge while living at the Old Manse. statue by Daniel Chester French. Emerson's poem was widely published in newspaper accounts of the dedication; in contrast there is no record of Congressman Samuel Hoar's speech that day. The poem, originally printed as a broadside for distribution at the monument's dedication, was republished as the last poem in Emerson's first edition of Poems in December 1848. In that edition the poem appeared with the three line title "HYMN: / SUNG AT THE COMPLETION OF THE CONCORD MONUMENT, / April 19, 1836." Emerson apparently confused the date of the 1837 dedication a decade earlier, July 4, Independence Day with the anniversary of the battle, April 19, Patriots' Day and the inscription on the obelisk mentions that it was erected in 1836. Emerson's line "the shot heard round the world" is a fixture in the lore of the American Revolution, and the opening stanza is inscribed beneath the Daniel Chester French The Minute Man'' statue dedicated at the 1875 commemoration of the original battle. "Concord Hymn" established Emerson as a poet; he was previously known as a lecturer and essayist. Emerson biographer Robert Richardson notes the phrase has since become the most famous line he ever wrote. Concord's centennial celebration of Emerson's birth in 1903 ended with a singing of the hymn.
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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 today 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.
