Classic Poem

Quietly under the elms
The village green reposes;
Soundless the afternoon
Deepens among the boughs
And over the ancient homes,
White-fronted, stained with roses,
Whose windows burn like dreams
Under their thoughtful brows.

Yonder the Concord Road,
Now in the rain-wet glistening,
Draws the receding light
Into the westward skies;
The Minute Man in bronze,
Face to the darkness, listening,
Welcomes the droop of night
With steady, unsleeping eyes.

Shadow and nightfall hush—
Yet loud in the heart go voices,
Loud on the road of thought,
Heroic, the tread of feet;
Up from the soil they won
The dust of our sires rejoices,
Bounds in the broad land's pulse
The fever that in them beat.

Louder than city's roar
Where Broadway's thousands thunder,
More eager than all the ships
That leap to the Golden Bay—
For theirs is the blood that stirs
To deeds that make gods wonder,
And theirs is the tread we hear
From Manhattan to Monterey!