April 19 The Harvard Classics, fifteen minutes a day

Battle of Concord

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Concord Hymn · about 1 minute

Dr. Eliot says of the opening stanza of the “Concord Hymn”: “In twenty-eight words here are the whole scene and all the essential circumstances . . . what an accurate, moving, immortal description is this!”

  • Fought April 19, 1775.

From the 1930 Reading Guide

Concord Hymn

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Page 1245 opens with the close of “Give All to Love”; the reading starts with “Concord Hymn” on the same page.

768 Concord Hymn
Sung at the Completion of the Battle Monument, July 4, 1837
BY the rude bridge that arched the flood,Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,Here once the embattled farmers stoodAnd 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 sweptDown 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 heroes dareTo die, and leave their children free,Bid Time and Nature gently spareThe shaft we raise to them and thee.
769 The Humble-Bee
BURLY, dozing humble-bee,Where thou art is clime for me.Let them sail for Porto Rique,Far-off heats through seas to seek;I will follow thee alone,Thou animated torrid-zone!Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer,Let me chase thy waving lines;Keep me nearer, me thy hearer,Singing over shrubs and vines.
Insect lover of the sun,Joy of thy dominion!Sailor of the atmosphere;Swimmer through the waves of air;Voyager of light and noon;Epicurean of June;Wait, I prithee, till I comeWithin earshot of thy hum,—All without is martyrdom.
When the south wind, in May days,With a net of shining hazeSilvers the horizon wall,And with softness touching all,Tints the human countenanceWith a color of romance,And infusing subtle heats,Turns the sod to violets,Thou, in sunny solitudes,Rover of the underwoods,The green silence dost displaceWith thy mellow, breezy bass.

“The Humble-Bee,” which begins on page 1246, runs on for a full page more; the reading stops at the end of its third stanza, at the foot of page 1246.

Volume 42, pages 1245–1246 · See the scanned page on archive.org

This is the reading for April 19 in Fifteen Minutes a Day: The Reading Guide (1930 edition), page 45. There the assignment reads “Vol. 42, pp. 1245–1246.” Read it in the guide.

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