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 a 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 behind each fence and farm-yard 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 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, borne 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 to hear The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed, And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
THE Landlord ended thus his tale, Then rising took down from its nail The sword that hung there, dim with dust, And cleaving to its sheath with rust, And said, "This sword was in the fight." The Poet seized it, and exclaimed, "It is the sword of a good knight, Though homespun was his coat-of-mail; What matter if it be not named Joyeuse, Colada, Durindale, Excalibar, or Aroundight,
Or other name the books record? Your ancestor, who bore this sword As Colonel of the Volunteers, Mounted upon his old gray mare, Seen here and there and everywhere, To me a grander shape appears Than old Sir William, or what not, Clinking about in foreign lands With iron gauntlets on his hands, And on his head an iron pot!"
All laughed; the Landlord's face As his escutcheon on the wall; He could not comprehend at all The drift of what the Poet said; For those who had been longest dead
Were always greatest in his eyes; And he was speechless with surprise To see Sir William's plumed head Brought to a level with the rest, And made the subject of a jest.
And this perceiving, to appease The Landlord's wrath, the others' fears, The Student said, with careless ease, "The ladies and the cavaliers, The arms, the loves, the courtesies, The deeds of high emprise, I sing! Thus Ariosto says, in words
That have the stately stride and ring
Of armed knights and clashing swords. Now listen to the tale I bring;
Listen! though not to me belong
The flowing draperies of his song,
The words that rouse, the voice that charms.
The Landlord's tale was one of arms,
Only a tale of love is mine,
Blending the human and divine, A tale of the Decameron, told In Palmieri's garden old, By Fiametta, laurel-crowned, While her companions lay around, And heard the intermingled sound Of airs that on their errands sped, And wild birds gossiping overhead, And lisp of leaves, and fountain's fall, And her own voice more sweet than all, Telling the tale, which, wanting these, Perchance may lose its power to please."
THE FALCON OF SER FEDERIGO.
ONE summer morning, when the sun was hot, Weary with labor in his garden-plot, On a rude bench beneath his cottage eaves, Ser Federigo sat among the leaves
Of a huge vine, that, with its arms outspread, Hung its delicious clusters overhead. Below him, through the lovely valley, flowed The river Arno, like a winding road,
And from its banks were lifted high in air The spires and roofs of Florence called the Fair; To him a marble tomb, that rose above His wasted fortunes and his buried love. For there, in banquet and in tournament,
His wealth had lavished been, his substance spent, To woo and lose, since ill his wooing sped, Monna Giovanna, who his rival wed, Yet ever in his fancy reigned supreme, The ideal woman of a young man's dream.
Then he withdrew, in poverty and pain, To this small farm, the last of his domain, His only comfort and his only care
To prune his vines, and plant the fig and pear; His only forester and only guest
His falcon, faithful to him, when the rest, Whose willing hands had found so light of yore The brazen knocker of his palace door,
Had now no strength to lift the wooden latch, That entrance gave beneath a roof of thatch. Companion of his solitary ways, Purveyor of his feasts on holidays, On him this melancholy man bestowed The love with which his nature overflowed. And so the empty-handed years went round, Vacant, though voiceful with prophetic sound, And so, that summer morn, he sat and mused With folded, patient hands, as he was used, And dreamily before his half-closed sight Floated the vision of his lost delight.
Beside him, motionless, the drowsy bird Dreamed of the chase, and in his slumber heard The sudden, scythe-like sweep of wings, that dare The headlong plunge thro' eddying gulfs of air, Then, starting broad awake upon his perch, Tinkled his bells, like mass-bells in a church, And, looking at his master, seemed to say, "Ser Federigo, shall we hunt to-day?"
Ser Federigo thought not of the chase; The tender vision of her lovely face, I will not say he seems to see, he sees In the leaf-shadows of the trellises, Herself, yet not herself; a lovely child With flowing tresses, and eyes wide and wild, Coming undaunted up the garden walk, And looking not at him, but at the hawk. "Beautiful falcon!" said he, "would that I Might hold thee on my wrist, or see thee fly!" The voice was hers, and made strange echoes start Through all the haunted chambers of his heart,
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