Russet-clad children,
lurking in those broad meadows, with the bittern and the woodcock
and the rail, though wholly concealed by brakes and hardhack and
meadow-sweet, heard our salute that afternoon.
We were soon floating past the first regular battle ground of the
Revolution, resting on our oars between the still visible
abutments of that "North Bridge," over which in April, 1775,
rolled the first faint tide of that war, which ceased not, till,
as we read on the stone on our right, it "gave peace to these
United States." As a Concord poet has sung: -
"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."
Our reflections had already acquired a historical remoteness from
the scenes we had left, and we ourselves essayed to sing.
Ah, 't is in vain the peaceful din
That wakes the ignoble town,
Not thus did braver spirits win
A patriot's renown.
There is one field beside this stream,
Wherein no foot does fall,
But yet it beareth in my dream
A richer crop than all.
Let me believe a dream so dear,
Some heart beat high that day,
Above the petty Province here,
And Britain far away;
Some hero of the ancient mould,
Some arm of knightly worth,
Of strength unbought, and faith unsold,
Honored this spot of earth;
Who sought the prize his heart described,
And did not ask release,
Whose free-born valor was not bribed
By prospect of a peace.
The men who stood on yonder height
That day are long since gone;
Not the same hand directs the fight
And monumental stone.
Ye were the Grecian cities then,
The Romes of modern birth,
Where the New England husbandmen
Have shown a Roman worth.
In vain I search a foreign land
To find our Bunker Hill,
And Lexington and Concord stand
By no Laconian rill.
With such thoughts we swept gently by this now peaceful
pasture-ground, on waves of Concord, in which was long since
drowned the din of war.
But since we sailed
Some things have failed,
And many a dream
Gone down the stream.
Here then an aged shepherd dwelt,
Who to his flock his substance dealt,
And ruled them with a vigorous crook,
By precept of the sacred Book;
But he the pierless bridge passed o'er,
And solitary left the shore.
Anon a youthful pastor came,
Whose crook was not unknown to fame,
His lambs he viewed with gentle glance,
Spread o'er the country's wide expanse,
And fed with "Mosses from the Manse."
Here was our Hawthorne in the dale,
And here the shepherd told his tale.
