PAUL REVERE'S RIDE. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

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 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 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 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.

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.

ULALUME – Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

The skies they were ashen and sober;
    The leaves they were crisped and sere ‑‑
    The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
    Of my most immemorial year:
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
    In the misty mid region of Weir: ‑‑
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
    In the ghoul‑haunted woodland of Weir.

Here once, through an alley Titanic,
    Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul ‑‑
    Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
There were days when my heart was volcanic
    As the scoriac rivers that roll ‑‑
    As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek,
    In the ultimate climes of the Pole ‑‑
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
    In the realms of the Boreal Pole.

Our talk had been serious and sober,
    But our thoughts they were palsied and sere ‑‑
    Our memories were treacherous and sere;
For we knew not the month was October,
    And we marked not the night of the year ‑‑
    (Ah, night of all nights in the year!)
We noted not the dim lake of Auber,
    (Though once we had journeyed down here)
We remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
    Nor the ghoul‑haunted woodland of Weir.

And now, as the night was senescent,
    And star‑dials pointed to morn ‑‑
    As the star‑dials hinted of morn ‑‑
At the end of our path a liquescent
    And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
    Arose with a duplicate horn ‑‑
Astarte's bediamonded crescent,
    Distinct with its duplicate horn.

And I said ‑‑ "She is warmer than Dian:
    She rolls through an ether of sighs ‑‑
    She revels in a region of sighs.
She has seen that the tears are not dry on

 These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
And has come past the stars of the Lion,
    To point us the path to the skies ‑‑
    To the Lethean peace of the skies ‑‑
Come up, in despite of the Lion,
    To shine on us with her bright eyes ‑‑
Come up, through the lair of the Lion,
    With love in her luminous eyes."

But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
    Said ‑‑ "Sadly this star I mistrust ‑‑
    Her pallor I strangely mistrust ‑‑
Ah, hasten! ‑‑ ah, let us not linger!
    Ah, fly! ‑‑ let us fly! ‑‑ for we must."
In terror she spoke; letting sink her
    Wings till they trailed in the dust ‑‑
In agony sobbed, letting sink her
    Plumes till they trailed in the dust ‑‑
    Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

I replied ‑‑ "This is nothing but dreaming.
    Let us on, by this tremulous light!
    Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
Its Sybillic splendor is beaming
    With Hope and in Beauty to‑night ‑‑
    See! ‑‑ it flickers up the sky through the night!
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
    And be sure it will lead us aright ‑‑
We safely may trust to a gleaming
    That cannot but guide us aright,
    Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
    And tempted her out of her gloom ‑‑
    And conquered her scruples and gloom;
And we passed to the end of the vista ‑‑
    But were stopped by the door of a tomb ‑‑
    By the door of a legended tomb: ‑‑
And I said ‑‑ "What is written, sweet sister,
    On the door of this legended tomb?"
    She replied ‑‑ "Ulalume ‑‑ Ulalume ‑‑
    'T is the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
    As the leaves that were crisped and sere ‑‑
    As the leaves that were withering and sere ‑‑
And I cried ‑‑ "It was surely October
    On this very night of last year,

    That I journeyed ‑‑ I journeyed down here! ‑‑
    That I brought a dread burden down here ‑‑
    On this night, of all nights in the year,
    Ah, what demon has tempted me here?
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber ‑‑
    This misty mid region of Weir: ‑‑
Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber ‑‑
    This ghoul‑haunted woodland of Weir."