Paul Revere Poem

Paul Revere's Ride
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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|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...