Whenever politicians get in trouble, or feel the need to peddle a dubious policy, they wheel out a battery of American flags. The bigger the con, the more flags there are. But the flag is more than just another political prop.
On July 4, the nation’s thoughts traditionally turn to the hopes and virtues that the Stars and Stripes represent — thoughts that have inspired America’s poets since the Republic’s early days.
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s grandfather, William Emerson, was a minister in Concord at the start of the Revolution. On April 19, 1775, he urged the Minutemen to stand their ground near his parsonage, the “Old Manse.”
In 1776, he left home to join the troops near Ticonderoga. His family never saw him again: He died of a fever, caught on the punishing journey. To the memory of his grandfather and the fallen Minutemen, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote these verses, sung at the dedication of the Concord Battle Monument on July 4, 1837.
Concord Hymn
By Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
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.
As the Ohio poet Henry Holcomb Bennett points out, people who failed to accord the flag the respect it deserved would usually be put in their place by their fellow citizens.
The Flag Goes By
By Henry Holcomb Bennett (1863 – 1924)
Hats off!
Along the street there comes
A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums,
A flash of color beneath the sky;
Hats off!
The flag is passing by!
Blue and crimson and white it shines
Over the steel-tipped, ordered lines
Hats off!
The colors before us fly;
But more than the flag is passing by.
Sea-fights and land-fights, grim and great
Fought to make and to save the State:
Weary marches and sinking ships;
Cheers of victory on dying lips;
Days of plenty and years of peace;
March of a strong land’s swift increase;
Equal justice, right and law,
Stately honor and reverend awe;
Sign of a nation, great and strong
Toward her people from foreign wrong:
Pride and glory and honor all
Live in the colors to stand or fall.