Happy Passover …

to all my Jewish readers. May all people come to live in the freedom from slavery which this holy day celebrates.

The nineteenth of April is also the anniversary of the Battle of Concord and Lexington, where in 1775 the Massachusetts citizens turned back a British force seeking stockpiled weapons of the Minutemen. This is generally regarded as the start of hostilities in  the American Revolution. For the dedication of an obelisk on the anniversary in 1836, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote "Concord Hymn."

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 to-day a votive stone;

That memory may their deed redeem,

When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those spirits dare,

To die, and leave their children free,

Bid Time and Nature gently spare

The shaft we raise to them and thee.

The first stanza is still familiar at least to some New Englanders, and the day is commemorated with a holiday on the third Monday of April in Maine, Massachusetts and, I believe, Wisconsin.