Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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 tonight,
Hang a lantern alive 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 a muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charleston shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swaying 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 true 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 grenadiers
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Then he climbed to the tower of the church,
Up the wooden stairs with a 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 overall.
Beneath the churchyard lay the dead,
In their night-encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
Theat 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 dread,
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the roar widens to meet the bay, -
A line of black that bends and floats,
On a kissing 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 horses side,
Now he gazed on the landscape far and near,
Then impetuous stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eagle 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! he looks on the belfry's night,
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 horses in the village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
and from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed that flies fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through that 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 kind into flame with his heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil, broad and deep,
Is the mystic, Meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders, that skirt the edge,
Now soft on the sound, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of steel 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 when 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 meetinghouse windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they had 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 Concorde 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 in the meadows brown.
And one was safe asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by the 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 being the fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the red coats down the lane,
Then crossing the field 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, born 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
The hurrying hoof beats of that steed,
At the midnight message of Paul Revere!