A FAMOUS POEM DIDN’T QUITE GET IT RIGHT

For decades, schoolchildren had to memorize a famous poem that begins with these words:

“Up from the meadows rich with corn,

 clear in the cool September morn;

The clustered spires of Frederick stand,

green-walled by the hills of Maryland.”

It’s John Greenleaf Whittier’s “Barbara Fritchie,” an American classic. The story of how as Confederate troops are passing through her town, elderly Barbara Fritchie bravely snatches a banner that was shot down by Rebel bullets and shouts the poem’s famous lines. Continue reading →