Poems of American Patriotism. Various

wafted Lafayette!

       Pole-star of light in Europe's night,

       That never faltered from the right.

      Kings shook with fear, old empires crave

       The secret force to find

       Which fired the little State to save

       The rights of all mankind.

      But right is might through all the world;

       Province to province faithful clung,

       Through good and ill the war-bolt hurled,

       Till Freedom cheered and the joy-bells rung.

      The sea returning day by day

       Restores the world-wide mart;

       So let each dweller on the Bay

       Fold Boston in his heart,

       Till these echoes be choked with snows,

       Or over the town blue ocean flows.

      Let the blood of her hundred thousands

       Throb in each manly vein;

       And the wit of all her wisest

       Make sunshine in her brain.

       For you can teach the lightning speech,

       And round the globe your voices reach.

      And each shall care for other,

       And each to each shall bend,

       To the poor a noble brother,

       To the good an equal friend.

      A blessing through the ages thus

       Shield all thy roofs and towers!

       God with the fathers, so with us, Thou darling town of ours!

PAUL REVERE'S RIDE

       Table of Contents

      HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

      [Sidenote: April 18, 1775] This poem is the "Landlord's Tale," the first of the "Tales of a Wayside Inn."

      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."

      Then he said, Good-night! and with muffled oar

       Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,

       Just as the moon rose over the bay,

       Where swinging wide at her moorings lay

       The Somerset, British man-of-war;

       A phantom ship, with each mast and spar

       Across the moon like a prison-bar,

       And a huge black hulk, that was magnified

       By its own reflection in the tide.

      Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street

       Wanders and watches with eager ears,

       Till in the silence around him he hears

       The muster of men at the barrack door,

       The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,

       And the measured tread of the grenadiers,

       Marching down to their boats on the shore.

      Then he climbed to the tower of the Old North Church

       By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,

       To the belfry-chamber overhead,

       And startled the pigeons from their perch

       On the sombre rafters, that round him made

       Masses and moving shapes of shade—

       By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,

       To the highest window in the wall,

       Where he paused to listen and look down

       A moment on the roofs of the town,

       And the moonlight flowing over all.

      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!"

       A moment only he feels the spell

       Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread

       Of the lonely belfry and the dead;

       For suddenly all his thoughts are bent

       On a shadowy something far away,

       Where the river widens to meet the bay—

       A line of black that bends and floats

       On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.

      Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,

       Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride

       On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.

       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.

      And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height

       A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!

       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!

       A hurry of hoofs in a village street,

       A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,

       And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark

       Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:

       That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,

       The fate of a nation was riding that night;

       And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,

       Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

      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