He has left the village and mounted the steep, And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep, Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;

And under the alders that skirt its edge,

Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,

Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock,

When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,

And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped 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 a spectral glare,

As if they already stood aghast

At the bloody work they would look upon.

It 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 trees,
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 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 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 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.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [1807-1882]

NEW ENGLAND'S CHEVY CHASE
[APRIL 19, 1775]

'Twas the dead of the night. By the pineknot's red light Brooks lay, half-asleep, when he heard the alarm,— Only this, and no more, from a voice at the door:

"The Red-Coats are out, and have passed Phips's farm."

Brooks was booted and spurred; he said never a word: Took his horn from its peg, and his gun from the rack; To the cold midnight air he led out his white mare,

Strapped the girths and the bridle, and sprang to her back.

Up the North County road at her full pace she strode,
Till Brooks reined her up at John Tarbell's to say,
"We have got the alarm,—they have left Phips's farm;
You rouse the East Precinct, and I'll go this way."

John called his hired man, and they harnessed the span;
They roused Abram Garfield, and Abram called me:
Turn out right away; let no minute-man stay;
The Red-Coats have landed at Phips's," says he.

By the Powder-House Green seven others fell in;

At Nahum's the men from the Saw-Mill came down; So that when Jabez Bland gave the word of command, And said, "Forward, march!" there marched forward

THE TOWN.

Parson Wilderspin stood by the side of the road,
And he took off his hat, and he said, "Let us pray!
O Lord, God of might, let thine angels of light
Lead thy children to-night to the glories of day!
And let thy stars fight all the foes of the Right
As the stars fought of old against Sisera."

And from heaven's high arch those stars blessed our march,
Till the last of them faded in twilight away;

And with morning's bright beam, by the banks of the stream Half the county marched in, and we heard Davis say:

"On the King's own highway I may travel all day, And no man hath warrant to stop me," says he;

"I've no man that's afraid, and I'll march at their head." Then he turned to the boys, "Forward, march! Follow me."

And we marched as he said, and the Fifer he played

The old "White Cockade," and he played it right well. We saw Davis fall dead, but no man was afraid;

That bridge we'd have had, though a thousand men fell.

This opened the play, and it lasted all day.

We made Concord too hot for the Red-Coats to stay; Down the Lexington way we stormed, black, white, and gray We were first in the feast, and were last in the fray.

They would turn in dismay, as red wolves turn at bay.
They levelled, they fired, they charged up the road.
Cephas Willard fell dead; he was shot in the head

As he knelt by Aunt Prudence's well-sweep to load.

John Danforth was hit just in Lexington Street,

John Bridge at that lane where you cross Beaver Falls, And Winch and the Snows just above John Munroe'sSwept away by one swoop of the big cannon-balls.

I took Bridge on my knee, but he said, "Don't mind me;
Fill your horn from mine,-let me lie where I be.

Our fathers," says he, "that their sons might be free,
Left their king on his throne, and came over the sea;
And that man is a knave, or a fool who, to save
His life for a minute, would live like a slave."

Well, all would not do! There were men good as new,-
From Rumford, from Saugus, from towns far away,-
Who filled up quick and well for each soldier that fell;
And we drove them, and drove them, and drove them,
all day.

We knew, every one, it was war that begun,

When that morning's marching was only half done.

In the hazy twilight, at the coming of night,

I crowded three buckshot and one bullet down.
'Twas my last charge of lead; and I aimed her and said,
“Good luck to you, lobsters, in old Boston Town."

In a barn at Milk Row, Ephraim Bates and Munroe,
And Baker, and Abram, and I made a bed.
We had mighty sore feet, and we'd nothing to eat;

But we'd driven the Red-Coats, and Amos, he said:
"It's the first time," says he, "that it's happened to me
To march to the sea by this road where we've come;
But confound this whole day, but we'd all of us say
We'd rather have spent it this way than to home."

The hunt had begun with the dawn of the sun,

And night saw the wolf driven back to his den.
And never since then, in the memory of men,
Has the Old Bay State seen such a hunting again.

Edward Everett Hale [1822-1909]

WARREN'S ADDRESS AT BUNKER HILL
[JUNE 16-17, 1775]

STAND! the ground's your own, my braves!

Will ye give it up to slaves?

Will ye look for greener graves?

Hope ye mercy still?

What's the mercy despots feel?
Hear it in that battle-peal!
Read it on yon bristling steel!
Ask it,-ye who will.

Fear ye foes who kill for hire?
Will ye to your homes retire?
Look behind you!—they're afire!
And, before you, see

Who have done it! From the vale
On they come and will ye quail?
Leaden rain and iron hail

Let their welcome be!

In the God of battles trust!
Die we may, and die we must:
But, O, where can dust to dust

Be consigned so well,

As where heaven its dews shall shed
On the martyred patriot's bed,

And the rocks shall raise their head,

Of his deeds to tell?

John Pierpont [1785-1866]

THE MARYLAND BATTALION

[BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND, AUGUST 27, 1776]

SPRUCE Macaronis, and pretty to see,
Tidy and dapper and gallant were we;
Blooded fine gentlemen, proper and tall,
Bold in a fox-hunt, and gay at a ball;
Prancing soldados, so martial and bluff,
Billets for bullets, in scarlet and buff—

But our cockades were clasped with a mother's low

prayer,

And the sweethearts that braided the swordknots were

fair.