Poetical Works Author:Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: And he, although a bashful man, And all his courage seemed to fail, Finding excuse of no avail, Yielded ; and thus the story ran. THE LANDLORD'S TALE. Paul K... more »evere's Ride. "April 5, 1860. Go with Sumner to Mr. H , of the North End, who acts as guide to the ' Little Britain' of Boston. We go to the Copps Hill burial ground and see the tomb of Cotton Mather, his father and his son; then to the old North Church, which looks like a parish church in London. We climb the tower to the chime of bells, now the home of innumerable pigeons. From this tower wjere hung the lanterns as a signal that the British troops had left Boston for Concord." The next day Mr. Longfellow set up his poem of Paul Revere's Ride, and on the 19th noted in his diary: "I wrote a few lines in Paul Revere's Ride; this being the day of that achievement.'' 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 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 all...« less