Paul Revere’s Ride: The Poem That Made a Legend

On this episode of Our American Stories, on April 18, 1775, a Boston silversmith set out on horseback with a warning that would travel from town to town in the dark. The ride itself was real, but the version most Americans remember came later, shaped by a poem that gave it a place in the national memory.

In this dramatic reading, American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow immortalizes Old North Church and Paul Revere in American folklore.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people up next. A history story and a literature story.
Paul Revere's Ride is a poem by the American poet
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and it commemorates the actions of American
patriot Paul Revere on April eighteenth, seventeen seventy five. Longfellow

(00:35):
was inspired to write the poem after visiting the Old
North Church in Boston and climbing its tower on April fifth,
eighteen sixty. He wrote the poem the next day, and
it was published in eighteen sixty one. Here is a
reading of that poem.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
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

(01:15):
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

(01:36):
rode 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

(02:01):
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 baryck door, the sound of arms, and the
tramp of feet, and the measured tread of the grenadiers

(02:21):
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 somber
rafters that round him made masses and moving shapes of
shade by the trembling ladders, steep and tall, to the

(02:44):
highest window in the wall, where he paused to listen
and looked down a moment on the roofs of the town,
and the moonlight flowing over all. Beneath in the churchyard
lay the dead and their night encampment on the hill,

(03:04):
wrapt 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

(03:26):
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

(03:46):
like a bridge of boats. Meanwhile, impatient mountain 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

(04:09):
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 somber and still
and lo.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
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.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
A hurry of hoofs in a village street, a shape
in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, and beneath
from the pebbles, and 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

(04:59):
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

(05:20):
the barking of the farmer's dog, and felt the damp
of the river fog that rises after the sun goes down.
It was won 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 blank
and bare, gaze at him with a spectral glare, as

(05:42):
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

(06:05):
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

(06:25):
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

(06:47):
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, forborne on the
night wind of the past, through all our history to
the last. In the hour of darkness and peril and need,

(07:08):
the people will waken and listen to hear the hurrying
hoop beats of that steed and the midnight message of
Paul Revere.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
And what a reading and what a story, folks. This
is our American Stories, Leehabib. Here, as we approach our
nation's two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, I'd like to remind
you that all the history stories you hear on this
show brought to you by the great folks at Hillsdale College,

(07:42):
and Hillsdale isn't just a great school for your kids
or grandkids to attend, but for you as well. Go
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free online courses. Again, go to Hillsdale dot edu and
sign up for their free and terrific online courses.