Paul Revere's Ride
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) |
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Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of
April, in Seventy-five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who
remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his
friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the
town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal-light,
One, if by
land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore
will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through
every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to
be up and to arm."
Then he said, Good-night! and with
muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide
at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon
like a prison-bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was
magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street
Wanders
and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around
him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the
measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their
boats on the shore.
Then he climbed to the tower of
the Old North Church
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy
tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled
the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that
round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By
the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest
window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look
down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the
moonlight flowing over all.
Beneath, in the
churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night-encampment on
the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he
could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful
night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he
feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret
dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly
all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far
away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
A line
of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a
bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and
ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the
opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his
horse's side,
Now gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and
tightened his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched with
eager search
The belfry-tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely, and
spectral, and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks,
on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of
light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second
lamp in the belfry burns!
A hurry of hoofs in a village
street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck
out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:
That was all!
And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a
nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by
that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame
with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted
the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the
alders, that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now
loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he
rides.
It was twelve by the village clock
When he
crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the
crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the
sun goes down.
It was one by the village clock,
When he rode into Lexington.
He saw the gilded
weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And
the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him
with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
It was two
by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in
Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And
the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath
of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge
would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.
You know the rest.
In the books you have read,
How the British Regulars
fired and fled,--
How the farmers gave them ball for
ball,
From behind each fence and farm-yard wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the
fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the
road,
And only pausing to fire and load.
So
through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the
night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village
and farm,--
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice
in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that
shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of
the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the
hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will
waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that
steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere. |
By
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
Listed May 11, 2012
In tribute to Paul Revere's famous ride on
April 18, 1775.
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