The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1910-02-27
~OLD IRoNsiDEs
BY RICHARD sPILLANE.
Paul Revere's Ride.
THE LANDLORDS TALE.


Paul Revere's Ride.
Listen. my children. and you shall hear
OF the midnight ride OF Paul Revere. |"
on the Eighteenth of April in Seventy.
FIVE;
Hardly man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and
year.
He said to his friend: III the British
march
BY land or sea from the town tonight,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
OF the North Church tower as signal
light
One, If by land. and two. If by sea;
And 1 on the opposite shore will be.
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
farm,
For the country folk to be up and to
arm"
Then he said, Good night" and with
muttled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown
shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings
The Somerset British an-of-war:
y phantom ship. with each mast and
spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk that was mag
nified
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 barraclS door
The sound of arms and the tramp of
feet,
And the measured tread of the grena-
ders
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 belfy-charnber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their
On the sombre rafters, that round him
Masses and moving shapes of shade
BY the trembling ladder, steep and
tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where hrt paused TO listen and look
dowh"
/
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 sentiners
tread.
The watchful night-wind. as 1t went
Creeping along from tent to tent
Md i1rr trs =, A t., .
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 'shadowy something far away,
Where the river w!dens to meet the
bay
On the rising tide, like a bridge of
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and
ride,
Booted and spurred. with q heavy
On the opposite shore walked Paul
Revere.
Now he patted his horses side.
Now gazed at the landscape far and
near;
I, Then. impetuous, stamped the earth
! And turned and frightened his saddle
girth;
!. But mostly he watched with eager
81 search
!, The belfry-tower OF the old North
Church,
AS 1t rose above the graves on the
j HILL
{, Lonely and spectral and son,bre and
sill.
And. 10! as he looks. on the beltry's
height
i A glinlmer, and then CLEAN of light!
); He springs to the saddle, the bride
4 he turns.
But fingers and gazes, till full on his
r A second lamp In the belfry burnsl
a hurry of boots IN village street.
4 a shape in the moonlight, a bulk !r
the dark
And beneath. from the pebbles In
passing, spark
t Struck out by a steed ay!ns fearles.
n. and fleet;
n That was all! And yet through tn,
gloom and the light
The fate OF a nation was riding tina
4 And the spark struck ont by that stee,
! Yindled the land into aame with 1t
II heat,
Y He has left the village and mounts
the steep,
And beneath him. TRANQUIL and broa
and deep.
Is the Mystic. meeting the ocean tide
IN And under the alders that skirt 1,