Year: 1861

a pnant0m snip, Win eacn mast ana spar
Across the moon, like prison bar,
And huge. black hulk, that was magnifed.
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 to the tower of the church,
Up the wooden stairs with stealthy tread,
To the belfry- y-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses of moving shapes of shade
Up the light lad der, slender 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 sentiners tread,
The watchful night-wind as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!'
A moment only Le 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 tar away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred with 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 eager search
The belfry-tower of the old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely, and spectOral, sOmbre and still.
And lO ! as he looks, on the belfry's height,
A glimmer, and then CLEAN of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bride he turns,
But fingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!
A hurry of hoofs in village street,
A shape in the moonlight, bulk in the street,
And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, .


spark


Struck oot by stsed that flies fearless and
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and
The fate of nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed in his


flight,


Kindled the land into flame with his heat.
1t was twelve by the village clock,
When. he crossed the bridge into Medford


town.


He heard the Growing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmers dog,
And felt the damp of the river-fOg,
That rises when the sun goes down.
1t was one by the village clock,
When he rode into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercOck
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting house windows, blank and


bare,


Gaze at him with spectoral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
1t 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 tress,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows 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 British musket ball.
You know the rest. In the books you have


read


How the British regulars fred and fled
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the red coats 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 when his cry Of


alarm


To every Mddlesex village and farm
A cry of defiance and not of fear,--
Avoice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore !
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,
Tie people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beat of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.


A WRITER in an Arkansas paper, who is
evidently no friend of Lincoln, gives us his