- 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 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 he 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 galloped into Lexington.
- He saw the gilded weathercock
- Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
- And the meeting-house windows, black 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 meadow 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 farmyard wall,
- Chasing the redcoats 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 for evermore!
- 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.
