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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.

INTERLUDE.

       Table of Contents

      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?

       Your ancestor, who bore this sword

       As Colonel of the Volunteers,

       Mounted upon his old gray mare,

       Seen here and there and everywhere,

       To me a grander shape appears

       Than old Sir William, or what not,

       Clinking about in foreign lands

       With iron gauntlets on his hands,

       And on his head an iron pot!"

      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;

       For those who had been longest dead

       Were always greatest in his eyes;

       And he was speechless with surprise

       To see Sir William's plumed head

       Brought to a level with the rest,

       And made the subject of a jest.

      And this perceiving, to appease

       The Landlord's wrath, the others' fears,

       The Student said, with careless ease,

       "The ladies and the cavaliers,

       The arms, the loves, the courtesies,

       The deeds of high emprise, I sing!

       Thus Ariosto says, in words

       That have the stately stride and ring

       Of armed knights and clashing swords.

       Now listen to the tale I bring;

       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

       In Palmieri's garden old,

       By Fiametta, laurel-crowned,

       While her companions lay around,

       And heard the intermingled sound

       Of airs that on their errands sped,

       And wild birds gossiping overhead,

       And lisp of leaves, and fountain's fall,

       And her own voice more sweet than all,

       Telling the tale, which, wanting these,

       Perchance may lose its power to please."

THE STUDENT'S TALE.

       Table of Contents

THE FALCON OF SER FEDERIGO.

       Table of Contents

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