The following version of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poem “Concord Hymn” was used to create this guide: Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Complete Essays and Other Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Edited by Brooks Atkinson, Modern Library, 1940.

Note that all parenthetical citations within the guide refer to the lines of the poem from which the quotations are taken.

“Concord Hymn” begins by describing the scene of an old battle site. Emerson refers to the site of North Bridge, in Concord, Massachusetts, which played a key role in the battles of Lexington and Concord in the American Revolutionary War. The speaker refers as well to the time of year, mid-Spring, and to the imagined figures who fought in this historic battle. The poem lauds these fighters on the colonists’ side of the war and suggests that they were fighting for the freedom enjoyed by their descendants such as the poet himself.

Emerson's verse calls on American patriots to commemorate these long-since deceased fighters. Their spirit, he suggests, lives on in the American ethos that cherishes liberty. Initially composed at the behest of the Battle Monument Committee and first published in 1837, the poem was spoken and sung as a patriotic hymn throughout the nineteenth century.