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. And the barking of the farmer's dog, It was one by the village clock, 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, 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, And only pausing to fire and load. So through the night rode Paul Revere; And so through the night went his cry of alarm A cry of defiance and not of fear, A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, In the hour of darkness and peril and need, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [1807-1882] NEW ENGLAND'S CHEVY CHASE '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, John called his hired man, and they harnessed the span; 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 from heaven's high arch those stars blessed our march, 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. 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; Our fathers," says he, "that their sons might be free, Well, all would not do! There were men good as new,- 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. In a barn at Milk Row, Ephraim Bates and Munroe, But we'd driven the Red-Coats, and Amos, he said: The hunt had begun with the dawn of the sun, And night saw the wolf driven back to his den. Edward Everett Hale [1822-1909] WARREN'S ADDRESS AT BUNKER HILL 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? Fear ye foes who kill for hire? Who have done it! From the vale Let their welcome be! In the God of battles trust! Be consigned so well, As where heaven its dews shall shed 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, But our cockades were clasped with a mother's low prayer, And the sweethearts that braided the swordknots were fair. |