“Ah, ‘tis in vain the peaceful din”
The speaker in Henry David Thoreau’s “Ah, ‘tis in vain the peaceful din,” muses on the spirit of the American Revolution. He contrasts the revolutionary fighters with what he observes as a lesser spirit in his contemporaries; he says, “Ah, ‘tis in vain the peaceful din / That wakes the ignoble town,” and then he says the “braver spirits” who achieved the recognition from the patriotic citizens did not make their noise this way, in nothing but vanity.
“There is one field beside this stream”
The speaker asserts that his dream is more productive than those who allow the field and the stream to remain unused. Then the speaker asks his muse to allow him to understand the spirit of those brave men who fought for independence “Above the petty Province here, / And Britain far away.” By referring to Britain as far away, the speaker reveals that the struggling revolutionaries were defending their right to freedom.
The speaker has referred to the town as both “ignoble” and “petty” showing his disdain for his contemporaries as he contrasts them with the revolutionaries of the preceding century.
“Some hero of the ancient mould”
Instead of “petty,” those heroesstood up to their enemies like the heroes of ancient Greece and Rome; they did not sell their power and their faith, and by their strength and heroic example, they “Honored this spot of earth.”
Those revolutionary heroes struggled to reach their worthy goals and did not try to shirk their duty. They could not be “bribed” to settle for less than victory; they did not sell out but struggled on valiantly for a peace with honor. Unlike his contemporaries, who seek the easy way out, who do not struggle against such evils as the war with Mexico and slavery.
“The men who stood on yonder height”
Referring the heroes he has been eulogizing, the speaker then says, “The men who stood on yonder height / That day are long since gone; / Not the same hand directs the fight / And monumental stone.” Those earlier heroes are gone, and those who fight today are not of the same spirit as they, even as these contemporaries negotiate to erect monuments to these heroes.
Then the speaker addresses those early American heroes, telling them they were strong and stalwart like the ancient the ancient Greeks and Romans. The New England farmers showed this strength as they fought for American independence from Britain.
“In vain I search a foreign land”
Then the speaker say that it is useless to try to find such heroes now: “In vain I search a foreign land / To find our Bunker Hill, / And Lexington and Concord stand / By no Laconian rill.” There is no gallant struggle now that can compare to the battle that took place at Bunker Hill. And the two cities of Lexington and Concord cannot compare in bravery and forthrightness of a Spartan city.
The speaker of the poem disdains contemporary society and its citizens by comparing them unfavorably to those a century earlier in America and those ancient Greek and Roman warriors who demonstrated bravery and constancy as their struggle to achieve victory over their enemies.
