And when he played, the atmosphere
Was filled with magic, and the ear
Caught echoes of that Harp of Gold,
Whose music had so weird a sound,
The hunted stag forgot to bound,
The leaping rivulet backward rolled,
The birds came down from bush and
tree,

The dead came from beneath the sea,
The maiden to the harper's knee!
The music ceased; the applause was
loud,

The pleased musician smiled and

bowed;

The wood-fire clapped its hands of flame,

The shadows on the wainscot stirred, And from the harpsichord there came A ghostly murmur of acclaim,

A sound like that sent down at night
By birds of passage in their flight,
From the remotest distance heard.

Then silence followed; then began
A clamour for the Landlord's tale,
The story promised them of old,
They said, but always left untold;
And he, although a bashful man,
And all his courage seemed to fail,
Finding excuse of no avail,
Yielded; and thus the story ran.

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 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 alley

and street,

Wanders and watches with eager ears, Till in the silence around him he hears The muster of men at the barrack-door, The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet, And the measured tread of the grenadiers,

Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed to the tower of the church,

Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,

To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their

perch

On the sombre rafters, that round him made

Masses and moving shapes of shade,— Up the trembling ladder, steep and tall, To the highest window in the wall, Where he paused to listen and look

down

A moment on the roofs of the town, And the moonlight flowing over all. 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 were 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.
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

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 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 the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one 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 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 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.

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.

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 other's 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."

Below him, through the lovely valley,

flowed

The river Arno, like a winding road, And from its banks were lifted high in air

The spires and roofs of Florence called the Fair;

To him a marble tomb, that rose above His wasted fortunes and his buried love. For there, in banquet and in tournament,

His wealth had lavished been, his substance spent,

To woo and lose, since ill his wooing sped,

Monna Giovanna, who his rival wed, Yet ever in his fancy reigned supreme, The ideal woman of a young man's dream.

of yore

The brazen knocker of his palace door, Had now no strength to lift the wooden

latch,

That entrance gave beneath a roof of thatch.

Companion of his solitary ways,
Purveyor of his feasts on holidays,

On him this melancholy man bestowed The love with which his nature overflowed.

And so the empty-handed years went round,

Vacant, though voiceful with prophetic sound,

And so, that summer morn, he sat and mused

With folded, patient hands, as he was used,

thee fly!"