{"id":4533,"date":"2005-04-18T21:05:51","date_gmt":"2005-04-19T01:05:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/?p=4533"},"modified":"2016-05-03T22:51:12","modified_gmt":"2016-05-04T02:51:12","slug":"paul-reveres-ride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/archives\/4533","title":{"rendered":"“Paul Revere’s Ride”"},"content":{"rendered":"

     
\nL<\/span>aura “liked to see Grace’s blue eyes and Carrie’s shine with excitement” when she told them the story of “Paul Revere’s Ride” from the Independent Fifth Reader<\/em> (see The Long Winter<\/em>, Chapter 22, “Cold and Dark”). “Paul Revere’s Ride” was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882). Longfellow was an American poet, educator, and linguist.<\/p>\n

\r\n\t\t\t\t\t
\r\n\t\t\t\t\tPAUL REVERE’S RIDE<\/strong><\/p>\n

Listen, my children, and you shall hear\n
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,\n
On the eighteenth of April, in seventy-five;–\n
Hardly a man is now alive\n
Who remembers that famous day and year.<\/p>\n

He said to his friend, “If the British march\n
By land or see from the town to-night,\n
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch\n
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,–\n
One, if by land, and two, if by sea;\n
And I on the opposite shore will be,\n
Ready to ride and spread the alarm\n
Through every Middlesex village and farm,\nFor the country-folk to be up and to arm.”<\/p>\n

Then said he, “Good night!” and with muffled oar\n
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,\n
Just as the moon rose over the bay,\n
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay,\n
The Somerset, British man-of-war;\n
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar\n
Across the moon like a prison bar,\n
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified\n
By its own reflection in the tide.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street,\n
Wanders and watches with eager ears,\n
Till in the silence around him he hears\n
The muster of men at the barrack door,\n
The sound of arms, and the stamp of feet,\n
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,\n
Marching down to their boats on the shore.<\/p>\n

Then he climbed to the tower of the church,\n
Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,\n
To the belfry-chamber overhead,\n
On the somber rafters, that round him made\n
Masses and moving shapes of shade,–\n
Up the trembling ladder, steep and tall,\n
To the highest window in the wall,\n
Where he paused to listen, and look down\n
A moment on the roofs of the town,\nAnd the moonlight flowing over all.<\/p>\n

Beneath, in the church-yard, lay the dead,\n
In their night-encampment on the hill,\n
Wrapped in silence so deep and still\n
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,\n
The watchful night-wind, as it went\n
Creeping along from tent to tent,\n
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”<\/p>\n

A moment only he feels the spell\n
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread\n
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;\n
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent\n
On a shadowy something far away,\n
Where the river widens to meet the bay,–\n
A line of black that bends and floats\n
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,\n
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride\n
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere,\n
Now he patted his horse’s side,\n
Now gazed at the landscape far and near,\n
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,\n
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;\n
But mostly he watched with eager search\n
The belfry-tower of the Old North Church,\n
As it rose above the graves on the hill,\n
Lonely and spectral and somber and still;–\n
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height\n
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!\n
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,\n
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight\n
A second lamp in the belfry burns!\r\n\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/p>\n

\r\n\t\t\t\t\t

\n
A hurry of hoofs in a village street,\n
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,\n
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark\n
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:\n
That was all! And yet through the gloom and the light,\n
The fate of a nation was riding that night;\n
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,\n
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.<\/p>\n

He has left the village, and mounted the steep,\n
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,\n
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;\n
And under the alders, that skirt its edge,\n
Now soft on the sand, no loud on the ledge,\n
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.\n
It was twelve by the village clock\n
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town,\n
He heard the crowing of the cock,\n
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,\n
And felt the damp of the river fog,\n
That rises after the sun goes down.<\/p>\n

It was one by the village clock\n
When he galloped into Lexington.\n
He saw the gilded weathercock\n
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,\n
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,\n
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,\n
As if they already stood aghast\n
At the bloody work they would look upon.<\/p>\n

It was two by the village clock\n
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.\n
He heard the bleating of the flock,\n
And the twitter of birds among the trees,\n
And felt the breath of the morning breeze\n
Blowing over the meadows brown.\n
And one was safe and asleep in his bed\n
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,\n
Who that day would be lying dead,\n
Pierced by a British musket-ball.<\/p>\n

You know the rest. In the books you have read\n
How the British Regulars fired and fled,–\n
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,\n
From behind each fence and farm-yard wall,\n
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,\n
Then crossing the fields to emerge again,\n
Under the trees at the turn of the road,\n
And only pausing to fire and load.<\/p>\n

So through the night rode Paul Revere;\n
And so through the night went his cry of alarm\n
To every Middlesex village and farm,–\n
A cry of defiance, a knock at the door,\n
And a word that shall echo forevermore!\n
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,\n
Through all our history, to the last,\n
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,\n
The people will waken and listen to hear\n
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,\n
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.<\/p>\r\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>

<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

     
\n
\n“Paul Revere’s Ride
\n<\/strong> (TLW 22; PG)
\n     “Listen, my children, and you shall hear…”
\n     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7844,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[631],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4533"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4533"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10750,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4533\/revisions\/10750"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}