Anonymous ID: e8bc7b Sept. 30, 2024, 10:23 a.m. No.21684274   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>4279 >>4283 >>4287

Paul Revere’s Ride” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

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 church,

Up 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,—

Up the trembling ladder, steep and tall,

 

2

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

www.gilderlehrman.org

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!

Anonymous ID: e8bc7b Sept. 30, 2024, 10:25 a.m. No.21684283   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>4287 >>4290

>>21684274

(cont.)

 

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.

Anonymous ID: e8bc7b Sept. 30, 2024, 10:26 a.m. No.21684290   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>4303 >>4321

>>21684283

(cont.)

 

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, black 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.

Anonymous ID: e8bc7b Sept. 30, 2024, 10:48 a.m. No.21684409   🗄️.is 🔗kun

I suspect that the reason the shills keep coming here is, that it makes their butts pucker, thereby enhancing their favorite past time.

Anonymous ID: e8bc7b Sept. 30, 2024, 11:04 a.m. No.21684517   🗄️.is 🔗kun

One of the traits common amongst most shills is, when they accuse you of something, whatever it is, if you examine it, it always ends up describing them, more than it describes you.

Anonymous ID: e8bc7b Sept. 30, 2024, 11:17 a.m. No.21684600   🗄️.is 🔗kun

>>21684572

Here is reality. Humans are the main problem regardless of their ethnicity, region or whatever. No matter where on this planet you go, you will find some good people and some bad people. Most of the bad people tend to be at the top of the heap and the rest are just trying to eke out a living and enjoy their families all while trying to avoid having to deal with the "rulers."

Anonymous ID: e8bc7b Sept. 30, 2024, 11:26 a.m. No.21684640   🗄️.is 🔗kun

>>21684598

The issue regarding separation of church and state has been misrepresented for quite some time because most people don't really think about it. Most of the first people who came to this country were fleeing from religious persecution.

 

Separation of church and state is NOT about forbidding religion in certain arenas, it's about NOT creating a GOVERNMENT ENFORCED religion and letting people decide for themselves.