PAUL REVERE'S RIDE

THIS poem, based upon a heroic incident of

the Revolutionary War, was written in

1860 and published in 1863 as the Landlord's Tale in Tales of a Wayside Inn. These tales were supposed to have been told by a group of friends around the hearthstone of the old Red Horse Inn at Sudbury, Massachusetts. It was written in the opening days of the Civil War, but was based on the earlier incident described. American patriots flocked from every side to resist tyranny and oppression. The British troops were quartered in Boston; the patriots were collecting stores and ammunition and mustering minute men to offer armed resistance to the threatened tyranny. The situation became so critical that at last the British commander gave his troops orders to march on Lexington and Concord, (1) to capture the patriot leaders, Hancock and Adams, who were at Lexington, (2) to capture the ammunition and provisions collected at Concord, and (3) so to overawe the colonists by this display of military force that further resistance would be discouraged. The British troops were watched closely, and their first movements on Lexington and Concord

were heralded throughout the surrounding country by swift, patriot horsemen, among whom Paul Revere was one of the most celebrated.

If the teacher places a simple sketch of the situation on the board, has her pupils copy it,

COPYRIGHTED BY P. P. CAPRONI & BRO., INC., BOSTON, MASS.

PAUL REVERE'S RIDE-After Painting in State House, Boston then has them read the poem, following carefully the sketch, the points otherwise obscure are made plain. When it is recalled that this poem, though based on an incident of the Revolution (Memorial History of Boston, III, p. 101), was written to stir into vigorous life the

slumbering spirit of patriotism in the hearts of men when Lincoln was calling for volunteers, the message of higher patriotism is clear to every reader.

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 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.

BOSTON AND VICINITY-SHOWING COURSE OF PAUL REVERE'S RIDE

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 barracks 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