| A |
Listen, my children and you shall hear |
| A |
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, |
| B |
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five: |
| B |
Hardly a man is now alive |
| A |
Who remembers that famous day and year. |
| A |
He said to his friend, “If the British march |
| B |
By land or sea from the town to-night, |
| A |
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch |
| B |
Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,— |
| C |
One if by land, and two if by sea; |
| C |
And I on the opposite shore will be, |
| D |
Ready to ride and spread the alarm |
| D |
Through every Middlesex village and farm, |
| D |
For the country-folk to be up and to arm.” |
| A |
Then he said “Good night!” and with muffled oar |
| A |
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, |
| B |
Just as the moon rose over the bay, |
| B |
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay |
| C |
The Somerset, British man-of-war: |
| C |
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar |
| C |
Across the moon, like a prison-bar, |
| D |
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified |
| D |
By its own reflection in the tide. |
| A |
Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street |
| B |
Wanders and watches with eager ears, |
| B |
Till in the silence around him he hears |
| C |
The muster of men at the barrack door, |
| A |
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet, |
| B |
And the measured tread of the grenadiers |
| C |
Marching down to their boats on the shore. |
| A |
Then he climbed to the tower of the church, |
| B |
Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, |
| B |
To the belfry-chamber overhead, |
| A |
And startled the pigeons from their perch |
| D |
On the sombre rafters, that round him made |
| D |
Masses and moving shapes of shade,— |
| E |
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall, |
| E |
To the highest window in the wall, |
| F |
A moment on the roofs of the town, |
| F |
Where he paused to listen and look down |
| E |
And the moonlight flowing over all. |
| A |
Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead, |
| B |
In their night-encampment on the hill, |
| B |
Wrapped in silence so deep and still |
| A |
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread, |
| C |
The watchful night-wind, as it went |
| C |
Creeping along from tent to tent, |
| D |
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!” |
| D |
A moment only he feels the spell |
| A |
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread |
| A |
Of the lonely belfry and the dead; |
| C |
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent |
| E |
On a shadowy something far away, |
| E |
Where the river widens to meet the bay,— |
| F |
A line of black, that bends and floats |
| F |
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats. |
| A |
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride, |
| A |
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride, |
| B |
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere. |
| A |
Now he patted his horse’s side, |
| B |
Now gazed on the landscape far and near, |
| C |
Then impetuous stamped the earth, |
| C |
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth; |
| D |
But mostly he watched with eager search |
| D |
The belfry-tower of the old North Church, |
| E |
As it rose above the graves on the hill, |
| E |
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still. |
| F |
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height, |
| F |
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light! |
| G |
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, |
| F |
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight |
| G |
A second lamp in the belfry burns! |
| A |
A hurry of hoofs in a village-street, |
| B |
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, |
| B |
And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark |
| A |
Struck out by a steed that flies fearless and fleet: |
| C |
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light, |
| C |
The fate of a nation was riding that night; |
| C |
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight, |
| A |
Kindled the land into flame with its heat. |
| A |
He has left the village and mounted the steep, |
| A |
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep, |
| B |
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides; |
| C |
And under the alders, that skirt its edge, |
| C |
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge, |
| B |
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides. |
| A |
It was twelve by the village clock |
| B |
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town. | |
| A |
He heard the crowing of the cock, |
| C |
And the barking of the farmer’s dog, |
| C |
And felt the damp of the river-fog, |
| B |
That rises when the sun goes down. |
| A |
It was one by the village clock, |
| B |
When he galloped into Lexington. |
| A |
He saw the gilded weathercock |
| C |
Swim in the moonlight as he passed, |
| D |
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare, |
| D |
Gaze at him with a spectral glare, | |
| C |
As if they already stood aghast |
| B |
At the bloody work they would look upon. |
| A |
It was two by the village clock, |
| B |
When he came to the bridge in Concord town. |
| B |
He heard the bleating of the flock, |
| C |
And the twitter of birds among the trees, |
| C |
And felt the breath of the morning breeze |
| B |
Blowing over the meadows brown. |
| D |
And one was safe and asleep in his bed |
| E |
Who at the bridge would be first to fall, |
| D |
Who that day would be lying dead, |
| E |
Pierced by a British musket-ball. |
| A |
You know the rest. In the books you have read, |
| A |
How the British Regulars fired and fled,— |
| B |
How the farmers gave them ball for ball, |
| B |
From behind each fence and farmyard-wall, |
| C |
Chasing the red-coats down the lane, |
| C |
Then crossing the fields to emerge again |
| D |
Under the trees at the turn of the road, |
| A |
And only pausing to fire and load. |
| A |
So through the night rode Paul Revere; |
| B |
And so through the night went his cry of alarm |
| B |
To every Middlesex village and farm,— |
| A |
A cry of defiance, and not of fear, |
| C |
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, |
| C |
And a word that shall echo forevermore! |
| D |
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past, |
| D |
Through all our history, to the last, |
| E |
In the hour of darkness and peril and need, |
| A |
The people will waken and listen to hear |
| E |
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed, |
| A |
And the midnight message of Paul Revere. |
I have long been intrigued by differing rhyme schemes and have
employed a variety of them in my own poetry. Besides using a series
of couplets, the simplest possible scheme—see, for example, “