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. And the twitter of birds among the trees, And one was safe and asleep in his bed 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, So through the night rode Paul Revere ; A cry of defiance and not of fear, A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, For, borne on the night-wind of the Past, In the hour of darkness and peril and need, And the midnight message of Paul Revere. 2 INTERLUDE. THE Landlord ended thus his tale, Then rising took down from its nail The sword that hung there, dim with dust, And cleaving to its sheath with rust, And said, "This sword was in the fight." The Poet seized it, and exclaimed, "It is the sword of a good knight, Though homespun was his coat-of-mail; What matter if it be not named Joyeuse, Colada, Durindale, Excalibar, or Aroundight, Or other name the books record ? Mounted upon his old gray mare, Seen here and there and everywhere, Than old Sir William, or what not, All laughed; the Landlord's face grew red As his escutcheon on the wall; He could not comprehend at all The drift of what the Poet said; And this perceiving, to appease The Landlord's wrath, the others' fears, The Student said, with careless ease, The arms, the loves, the courtesies, That have the stately stride and ring Listen! though not to me belong The flowing draperies of his song, The words that rouse, the voice that charms. The Landlord's tale was one of arms, Only a tale of love is mine, Blending the human and divine, A tale of the Decameron, told |