“Concord Hymn” is a quasi-war poem. In commemorating the first skirmish of the Revolutionary War, the poem takes pains to set the scene in the opening stanza. The speaker minds history and recreates the April morning when the colonists stopped the British from crossing the Old North Bridge. There is the battle flag unfurling in the April breeze, symbolizing the commitment of the colonists to a cause and gifting their resistance with the dimensions of an ideal. There are the “embattled farmers” (Line 3) themselves, not soldiers but farmers whose stake in the fast-approaching war would be driven by their emotional connection to the land itself. They would not die for a king nor would they be mercenaries for hire. They were fighting for their home. They are “embattled” (Line 3)—not battle-tested but rather patient, even longsuffering, and willing to endure decades of oppressive acts intended to humiliate the colonists and keep the colonies under the British king’s thumb. This war poem climaxes in the closing line of the first stanza when that first shot is fired and the battle, really the war itself, begins.

The poem steps back from recounting what happened after the first shot rang out. We are not given the chaos of the showdown, the rapid fire exchange, the screams of the wounded, or the casualties on both sides.