Friday, June 03, 2011

The Midnight Ride Of Paul Revere

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.'


[...]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 for evermore!
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.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)


I'm putting this poem on my blog because some people are a little confused about what Paul Revere actually did back in April of Seventeen Seventy-five.

The complete poem, along with information about Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Paul Revere's ride, can be found here.

4 comments:

colleen said...

toooo funny - just saw the video.
toooo scary...

Kay Dennison said...

I love it.  This woman is home schooling her kids so they can flunk out of as many colleges as she did!!!
I expect my president to know, love and respect our country's history.  I memorized that poem when I was about 10 years old because my dad asked (told) me to learn it.  It was one of many that he had memorized,  And I can still recite The Gettysberg Address but I can't remember what I did last week.  LOL

la peregrina said...

Too sad, too. The look in her eyes say she is not that sure about what she is saying but being a politician she just can't keep herself from running on.

la peregrina said...

Funny what sticks in our brains so many years later, huh?  :)