Listen to:
Paul Revere's Ride (5:56)
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode
(Published in 1860)
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 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 somber 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, 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 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
hill,
Lonely and spectral and somber 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 galloped 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-beat of that
steed,
And the midnight-message of Paul
Revere.
