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.

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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 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,

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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;

1 The last story in Tales of a Wayside Inn, First Series, and the only one of those 'tales' which was almost wholly original with Longfellow. There is a slight foundation for it, in the history of the town of Killingworth in Connecticut. The Cambridge Edition of Longfellow quotes a letter of Mr. Henry Hull, who, writing from personal recollection, says:

The men of the northern part of the town did yearly in the spring choose two leaders, and then the two sides were formed: the side that got beaten should pay the bills. Their special game was the hawk, the owl, the crow, the blackbird, and any other bird supposed to be mischievous to the corn. Some years each side would bring them in by the bushel. This was followed up for only a few years, for the birds began to grow scarce.'

In this poem, for once, Longfellow enters a field peculiarly belonging to Lowell: the half-humorous treatment of New England country life.

Emerson considered it the best of the Tales, and called it (perhaps with a little exaggeration !), 'Serene, happy, and immortal as Chaucer."

Then from his house, a temple painted white,

With fluted columns, and a roof of red, The Squire came forth, august and splendid sight!

Slowly descending, with majestic tread, Three flights of steps, nor looking left nor right,

Down the long street he walked, as one who said,

'A town that boasts inhabitants like me Can have no lack of good society!'

The Parson, too, appeared, a man austere, The instinct of whose nature was to kill; sc The wrath of God he preached from year to year,

And read, with fervor, Edwards on the

Will;

The thrush that carols at the dawn of day

wood;

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Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his

dreams!

Will bleat of flocks or bellowing of herds Make up for the lost music, when your

teams

Drag home the stingy harvest, and no

more

The feathered gleaners follow to your door?

'What! would you rather see the inces sant stir

Of insects in the windrows of the hay, And hear the locust and the grasshopper