![](\"https:\/\/stickpersonpoetry.com\/images\/042013\/0428.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
0428
\nAnother reason to like Boston<\/p>\n
The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere<\/strong> Listen my children and you shall hear
\nby Henry Wadsworth Longfellow<\/p>\n
\nOf the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
\nOn the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
\nHardly a man is now alive
\nWho remembers that famous day and year.
\nHe said to his friend, “If the British march
\nBy land or sea from the town to-night,
\nHang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
\nOf the North Church tower as a signal light,–
\nOne if by land, and two if by sea;
\nAnd I on the opposite shore will be,
\nReady to ride and spread the alarm
\nThrough every Middlesex village and farm,
\nFor the country folk to be up and to arm.”
\nThen he said “Good-night!” and with muffled oar
\nSilently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
\nJust as the moon rose over the bay,
\nWhere swinging wide at her moorings lay
\nThe Somerset, British man-of-war;
\nA phantom ship, with each mast and spar
\nAcross the moon like a prison bar,
\nAnd a huge black hulk, that was magnified
\nBy its own reflection in the tide.
\nMeanwhile, his friend through alley and street
\nWanders and watches, with eager ears,
\nTill in the silence around him he hears
\nThe muster of men at the barrack door,
\nThe sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
\nAnd the measured tread of the grenadiers,
\nMarching down to their boats on the shore.
\nThen he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
\nBy the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
\nTo the belfry chamber overhead,
\nAnd startled the pigeons from their perch
\nOn the sombre rafters, that round him made
\nMasses and moving shapes of shade,–
\nBy the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
\nTo the highest window in the wall,
\nWhere he paused to listen and look down
\nA moment on the roofs of the town
\nAnd the moonlight flowing over all.
\nBeneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
\nIn their night encampment on the hill,
\nWrapped in silence so deep and still
\nThat he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
\nThe watchful night-wind, as it went
\nCreeping along from tent to tent,
\nAnd seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
\nA moment only he feels the spell
\nOf the place and the hour, and the secret dread
\nOf the lonely belfry and the dead;
\nFor suddenly all his thoughts are bent
\nOn a shadowy something far away,
\nWhere the river widens to meet the bay,–
\nA line of black that bends and floats
\nOn the rising tide like a bridge of boats.
\nMeanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
\nBooted and spurred, with a heavy stride
\nOn the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
\nNow he patted his horse’s side,
\nNow he gazed at the landscape far and near,
\nThen, impetuous, stamped the earth,
\nAnd turned and tightened his saddle girth;
\nBut mostly he watched with eager search
\nThe belfry tower of the Old North Church,
\nAs it rose above the graves on the hill,
\nLonely and spectral and sombre and still.
\nAnd lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
\nA glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
\nHe springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
\nBut lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
\nA second lamp in the belfry burns.
\nA hurry of hoofs in a village street,
\nA shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
\nAnd beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
\nStruck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
\nThat was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
\nThe fate of a nation was riding that night;
\nAnd the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
\nKindled the land into flame with its heat.
\nHe has left the village and mounted the steep,
\nAnd beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
\nIs the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
\nAnd under the alders that skirt its edge,
\nNow soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
\nIs heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
\nIt was twelve by the village clock
\nWhen he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
\nHe heard the crowing of the cock,
\nAnd the barking of the farmer’s dog,
\nAnd felt the damp of the river fog,
\nThat rises after the sun goes down.
\nIt was one by the village clock,
\nWhen he galloped into Lexington.
\nHe saw the gilded weathercock
\nSwim in the moonlight as he passed,
\nAnd the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
\nGaze at him with a spectral glare,
\nAs if they already stood aghast
\nAt the bloody work they would look upon.
\nIt was two by the village clock,
\nWhen he came to the bridge in Concord town.
\nHe heard the bleating of the flock,
\nAnd the twitter of birds among the trees,
\nAnd felt the breath of the morning breeze
\nBlowing over the meadow brown.
\nAnd one was safe and asleep in his bed
\nWho at the bridge would be first to fall,
\nWho that day would be lying dead,
\nPierced by a British musket ball.
\nYou know the rest. In the books you have read
\nHow the British Regulars fired and fled,—
\nHow the farmers gave them ball for ball,
\nFrom behind each fence and farmyard wall,
\nChasing the redcoats down the lane,
\nThen crossing the fields to emerge again
\nUnder the trees at the turn of the road,
\nAnd only pausing to fire and load.
\nSo through the night rode Paul Revere;=
\nAnd so through the night went his cry of alarm
\nTo every Middlesex village and farm,—
\nA cry of defiance, and not of fear,
\nA voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
\nAnd a word that shall echo for evermore!
\nFor, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
\nThrough all our history, to the last,
\nIn the hour of darkness and peril and need,
\nThe people will waken and listen to hear
\nThe hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
\nAnd the midnight message of Paul Revere.<\/p>\n