IN OLD CONCORD 91 



all that first gave the name to the town, and 

 more. Here are peaceful rivers meeting in rich 

 meadows from which spring with the rising 

 ground fruitful fields. Here men dwell in amity 

 and keep singularly intact the beauty and thrift 

 of a New England village of a century ago, 

 though even here one can see wealth taking the 

 place of prosperity and the pretentious ugliness 

 of the modern attempt at Queen Anne archi- 

 tecture shouldering the quiet dignity of the old 

 Colonial residences off the street. Here and 

 there a little of the husk of the Concord of the 

 Revolution remains, though somewhat sadly 

 hemmed in. A simulacrum of the Concord 

 Bridge still spans the flood, done in resonant 

 cement, but here the poet finds himself not near 

 enough to his object. Nor is his jealousy an odd 

 one, for the rude bridge that arched the flood led 

 somewhere. This echo of the triumph that has 

 passed by drops him who would tread in the 

 footsteps of heroes within the narrow bounds of 

 an iron picket fence beyond which keep-off-the- 

 grass signs doubly defend the way. In the pres- 

 ence of these the Minute Man seems superfluous. 



