Midnight Ride of Paul Revere — Vocabulary
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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  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.†

  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.†

  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.†

  Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
  In their night-encampment on the hill,
  Wrapped in silence so deep and still
  That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
  The watchful night-wind, as it went
  Creeping along from tent to tent,
  And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"†

  Now he patted his horse's side,
  Now gazed at the landscape far and near,
  Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
  And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
  But mostly he watched with eager search
  The belfry-tower of the Old North Church,
  As it rose above the graves on the hill,
  Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.†

  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.†

  He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
  But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
  A second lamp in the belfry burns!†