{"id":168,"date":"2025-08-17T18:26:21","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T18:26:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/?page_id=168"},"modified":"2025-08-27T13:20:54","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T13:20:54","slug":"henry-wadsworth-longfellow-paul-reveres-ride-1861","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/texts\/henry-wadsworth-longfellow-paul-reveres-ride-1861\/","title":{"rendered":"Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, \u201cPaul Revere\u2019s Ride\u201d (1861)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1859 (Maine Historical Society<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow<\/a> (1807\u20131882) was probably the most widely read American poet of the nineteenth century.\u00a0 He was born in what was then Portland, Massachusetts (now Maine) and graduated from Bowdoin College.\u00a0 Longfellow was married twice, but both of his wives died tragically.\u00a0 He became a professor of modern languages and world literature and eventually taught for years at Harvard College before he resigned in 1854 to focus on his writing.\u00a0 Edward Hirsch describes Longfellow as “our first true internationalist” (Heart of American Poetry,<\/em> 29).\u00a0 Though accomplished as a linguist, it was Longfellow’s early poetry that earned him national renown by the 1840s and 1850s. He was influenced by the political and intellectual ferment in Boston during these years before the Civil War and aspired to write poetry that would have a cultural impact.\u00a0 Longfellow was friendly with abolitionists and transcendentalists.\u00a0 Part of his motivation for “Paul Revere’s Ride,” ostensibly a historical poem about the revolutionary events of 1775, clearly concerned the sectional politics of slavery.\u00a0 Longfellow wanted –like Paul Revere– to warn his fellow New Englanders that there was a grave danger threatening their liberties that required urgent action.\u00a0 This\u00a0 poem was published in the January 1861 volume of The Atlantic <\/em>magazine, an issue that first appeared in Boston, according to historian Jill Lepore<\/a>, on December 20, 1860 –the day that South Carolina seceded from the union.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Paul Revere’s Ride<\/h3>\n
\"Atlantic\"<\/a>
Atlantic Monthly, January 1861<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Listen, my children, and you shall hear<\/span>
\nOf the midnight ride of Paul Revere,<\/span>
\nOn the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:<\/span>
\nHardly a man is now alive<\/span>
\nWho remembers that famous day and year.<\/span><\/p>\n

He said to his friend, \u201cIf the British march<\/span>
\nBy land or sea from the town to-night,<\/span>
\nHang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch<\/span>
\nOf the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,\u2014<\/span>
\nOne if by land, and two if by sea;<\/span>
\nAnd I on the opposite shore will be,<\/span>
\nReady to ride and spread the alarm<\/span>
\nThrough every Middlesex village and farm,<\/span>
\nFor the country-folk to be up and to arm.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Then he said \u201cGood night!\u201d and with muffled oar<\/span>
\nSilently rowed to the Charlestown shore,<\/span>
\nJust as the moon rose over the bay,<\/span>
\nWhere swinging wide at her moorings lay<\/span>
\nThe Somerset, British man-of-war:<\/span>
\nA phantom ship, with each mast and spar<\/span>
\nAcross the moon, like a prison-bar,<\/span>
\nAnd a huge black hulk, that was magnified<\/span>
\nBy its own reflection in the tide.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street<\/span>
\nWanders and watches with eager ears,<\/span>
\nTill in the silence around him he hears<\/span>
\nThe muster of men at the barrack door,<\/span>
\nThe sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,<\/span>
\nAnd the measured tread of the grenadiers<\/span>
\nMarching down to their boats on the shore.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then he climbed to the tower of the church,<\/span>
\nUp the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,<\/span>
\nTo the belfry-chamber overhead,<\/span>
\nAnd startled the pigeons from their perch<\/span>
\nOn the sombre rafters, that round him made<\/span>
\nMasses and moving shapes of shade,\u2014<\/span>
\nBy the trembling ladder, steep and tall,<\/span>
\nTo the highest window in the wall,<\/span>
\nWhere he paused to listen and look down<\/span>
\nA moment on the roofs of the town,<\/span>
\nAnd the moonlight flowing over all.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,<\/span>
\nIn their night-encampment on the hill,<\/span>
\nWrapped in silence so deep and still<\/span>
\nThat he could hear, like a sentinel\u2019s tread,<\/span>
\nThe watchful night-wind, as it went<\/span>
\nCreeping along from tent to tent,<\/span>
\nAnd seeming to whisper, \u201cAll is well!\u201d<\/span>
\nA moment only he feels the spell<\/span>
\nOf the place and the hour, and the secret dread<\/span>
\nOf the lonely belfry and the dead;<\/span>
\nFor suddenly all his thoughts are bent<\/span>
\nOn a shadowy something far away,<\/span>
\nWhere the river widens to meet the bay,\u2014<\/span>
\nA line of black, that bends and floats<\/span>
\nOn the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,<\/span>
\nBooted and spurred, with a heavy stride,<\/span>
\nOn the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.<\/span>
\nNow he patted his horse\u2019s side,<\/span>
\nNow gazed on the landscape far and near,<\/span>
\nThen impetuous stamped the earth,<\/span>
\nAnd turned and tightened his saddle-girth;<\/span>
\nBut mostly he watched with eager search<\/span>
\nThe belfry-tower of the old North Church,<\/span>
\nAs it rose above the graves on the hill,<\/span>
\nLonely and spectral and sombre and still.<\/span>
\nAnd lo! as he looks, on the belfry\u2019s height,<\/span>
\nA glimmer, and then a gleam of light!<\/span>
\nHe springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,<\/span>
\nBut lingers and gazes, till full on his sight<\/span>
\nA second lamp in the belfry burns!<\/span><\/p>\n

A hurry of hoofs in a village-street,<\/span>
\nA shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,<\/span>
\nAnd beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark<\/span>
\nStruck out by a steed that flies fearless and fleet:<\/span>
\nThat was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,<\/span>
\nThe fate of a nation was riding that night;<\/span>
\nAnd the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,<\/span>
\nKindled the land into flame with its heat.<\/span><\/p>\n

He has left the village and mounted the steep,<\/span>
\nAnd beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,<\/span>
\nIs the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;<\/span>
\nAnd under the alders, that skirt its edge,<\/span>
\nNow soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,<\/span>
\nIs heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was twelve by the village clock<\/span>
\nWhen he crossed the bridge into Medford town.<\/span>
\nHe heard the crowing of the cock,<\/span>
\nAnd the barking of the farmer\u2019s dog,<\/span>
\nAnd felt the damp of the river-fog,<\/span>
\nThat rises when the sun goes down.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was one by the village clock,<\/span>
\nWhen he galloped into Lexington.<\/span>
\nHe saw the gilded weathercock<\/span>
\nSwim in the moonlight as he passed,<\/span>
\nAnd the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,<\/span>
\nGaze at him with a spectral glare,<\/span>
\nAs if they already stood aghast<\/span>
\nAt the bloody work they would look upon.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was two by the village clock,<\/span>
\nWhen he came to the bridge in Concord town.<\/span>
\nHe heard the bleating of the flock,<\/span>
\nAnd the twitter of birds among the trees,<\/span>
\nAnd felt the breath of the morning breeze<\/span>
\nBlowing over the meadows brown.<\/span>
\nAnd one was safe and asleep in his bed<\/span>
\nWho at the bridge would be first to fall,<\/span>
\nWho that day would be lying dead,<\/span>
\nPierced by a British musket-ball.<\/span><\/p>\n

You know the rest. In the books you have read,<\/span>
\nHow the British Regulars fired and fled,\u2014<\/span>
\nHow the farmers gave them ball for ball,<\/span>
\nFrom behind each fence and farmyard-wall,<\/span>
\nChasing the red-coats down the lane,<\/span>
\nThen crossing the fields to emerge again<\/span>
\nUnder the trees at the turn of the road,<\/span>
\nAnd only pausing to fire and load.<\/span><\/p>\n

So through the night rode Paul Revere;<\/span>
\nAnd so through the night went his cry of alarm<\/span>
\nTo every Middlesex village and farm,\u2014<\/span>
\nA cry of defiance, and not of fear,<\/span>
\nA voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,<\/span>
\nAnd a word that shall echo forevermore!<\/span>
\nFor, borne on the night-wind of the Past,<\/span>
\nThrough all our history, to the last,<\/span>
\nIn the hour of darkness and peril and need,<\/span>
\nThe people will waken and listen to hear<\/span>
\nThe hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,<\/span>
\nAnd the midnight message of Paul Revere.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807\u20131882) was probably the most widely read American poet of the nineteenth century.\u00a0 He was born in what was then Portland, Massachusetts (now Maine) and graduated from Bowdoin College.\u00a0 Longfellow was married twice, but both of his wives died tragically.\u00a0 He became […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":373,"featured_media":0,"parent":258,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-168","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/373"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":458,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/168\/revisions\/458"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}