Midnight Ride of Paul Revere

A poem about a revolutionary hero

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) wrote his rousing poem, "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere," about one of Boston's best-known Patriots in 1860, almost 100 years after the actual event.  He first published it in 1863 in Tales of a Wayside Inn, and probably millions of American school children have read it since that time.

Of course, like many poets writing about historic events, Longfellow takes some liberties in "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere." 

He doesn't mention that William Dawes, a second alert-raiser who'd taken a land route out of Boston, joined Revere at Medford and they rode together to Lexington. 

Nor does he mention that Dr. Samuel Prescott also joined them along the way. 

Dr. Prescott, a Concord local, had been visiting his girlfriend. 

When Revere and Dawes sounded the alert, Prescott jumped out the back window of his girlfriend's house and joined them, since he agreed with their mission.

As you can see in the drawing on the left of "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" by Miss C. S. King of Boston, published in Beginner's American History in 1893, others also perpetuated the myth of Paul Revere as a lone rider.

Longfellow also doesn't mention in "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" that British troops captured all three men at a site near Hanscom Air Force Base in present-day Bedford.  You can see a marker commemorating the capture site in Minute Man National Historic Park on the route to the Old North Bridge.

Fortunately, they managed to escape.

There's even some debate among historians and scholars about exactly which North Church in Boston's North End neighborhood had the two lanterns hung from it. 

However, Longfellow does get the details right in other parts of "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere," such as the fierce fighting by the farmers along the way - mostly women and older men such as Samuel Whittemore, another American Revolutionary War hero. 

And there's also no doubt that "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" is a rousing poem . . . and Revere, who went on to have an illustrious career as a silversmith and businessman, is a genuine American hero.

Even though "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" highlights the bravery of only one particular person, it captures the spirit of determination that enabled the colonists to win the Revolutionary War.

"The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" is now in the public domain (meaning that it isn't protected by copyright) so I include it below for your reading pleasure. 

You can also visit Paul Revere's house in Boston's North End.  Aside from its historical connections with one of the great Sons of Liberty, it's also typical of the style of late Elizabethan houses that once filled the city . . . but have now all but disappeared.

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere

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 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 he 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, 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 meadow 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 farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats 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 for evermore!
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.