Paul Revere’s Ride

Paul Revere’s Ride
185.4

Listen, iny chlidren, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of inul 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 tonight
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North church tower as a signal light;
One, if by land; two, if ly sen
And I on the opposite shore will be.
Ready to ride and 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 sasorings,
The Somerset. British man-of-war: lay
A phantom ship, with each mas mast and spar
Across the moon, like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By ita own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street
Wanders and watches with eager caга,
Tiil. 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 cllinbed to the tower of the church.
Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy althy tread.
To the beifry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the somber rafters, that around him made
Musses and moving shapes of shade-
Up 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 a 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, the secret dread
Of the lonely beifr 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 noats
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 on 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 hitt.
Lonely and spectral and somber and still.

And as he looks on the belfry’s height,
A gllimmer and then then gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But fingers and gages till full on his sight
A second lamp the beifry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in village street.
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck by a stead flying fearless and fleet:
That was aanil! And yet through the gloom and light,
The fate of acation was riding that night,

And the spark struck out by that fins fight
Kindled the land into flare with its best.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford wan
He heart the crowing of the cock
And the barking of the farmer’s dog.
And felt the damp of the river fog.
That risen after the san goes down.

It was one by the village clock
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the glited weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed.
And the meeting house windows blank and Lare
Gaze at hini with a spectral stare,
As if they airendy stood arhast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two be the village clock
When he came to the bridge in Concord towns
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 pafe and axirep in his bel
Who would be ftrar at the bridge to fall,
Who that day would be lying dend.
Pierced by a British musket-ball.

You know the rest. In the hooks you have read,
How the British regulars fired and fled.
How the farmers gave them bail for ball
From behind each fence and farmvard wall:
Chasing the redcoats down the lane.
Then crossing the fields, to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the rond.
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere:
And so through the night went his ery of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm-
A crv of detlance, and not of fear-
A volce in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forever more!
For. borne on the night wind of the Past.
Tarough all our history to the last.
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen and hear,
The hurrying hoofbrats of that steed
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.