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PAUL REVERE'S RIDE.-H. W. Longfellow.

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-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 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 light ladder, slender and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the quiet town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the church-yard, 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, 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.

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 on 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, aud 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!

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 that flies 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.

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 when the sun goes down.

It was one by the village-clock,
When he rode 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.

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 farmyard-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 yoice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
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-beat of that steed.
And the midnight-message of Paul Revere.

PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF GETTYSBURG CEMETERY.

Nov. 1864.

FOURSCORE and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.

It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to the cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

SOCRATES SNOOKS.

MISTER Socrates Snooks, a lord of creation,
The second time entered the married relation:

Xantippe Caloric accepted his hand,

And they thought him the happiest man in the land.
But scarce had the honeymoon passed o'er his head,
When, one morning, to Xantippe, Socrates said,
"I think, for a man of my standing in life.
This house is too small, as I now have a wife:
So, as early as possible, carpenter Carey

Shall be sent for to widen my house and my dairy.”

"Now, Socrates, dearest," Xantippe replied,
"I hate to hear every thing vulgarly my'd;
Now, whenever you speak of your chattels again,
Say, our cow house, our barn yard, our pig pen."
"By your leave, Mrs. Snooks, I will say what I please
Of my houses, my lands, my gardens, my trees."

66

66

Say our," Xantippe exclaimed in a rage.

I won't, Mrs. Snooks, though you ask it an age !"

Oh, woman! though only a part of man's rib,
If the story in Genesis don't tell a £.b,

Should your naughty companion e'er quarrel with you,
You are certain to prove the best man of the two.
In the following case this was certainly true;
For the lovely Xantippe just pulled off her shoe,
And laying about her, all sides at random,
The adage was verified—“Nil desperandum.”

Mister Socrates Snooks, after trying in vain,
To ward off the blows which descended like rain-
Concluding that valor's best part was discretion—
Crept under the bed like a terrified Hessian :
But the dauntless Xantippe, not one whit afraid,
Converted the siege into a blockade.

At last, after reasoning the thing in his pate,
He concluded 't was useless to strive against fate:

And so, like a tortoise protruding his head,

Said, "My dear, may we come out from under our bed ?” “Hah! hah!" she exclaimed, "Mr. Socrates Snooks,

I perceive you agree to my terms by your looks:
Now, Socrates-hear me-from this happy hour,

If you'll only obey me, I'll never look sour."
'Tis said the next Sabbath, ere going to church,

He chanced for a clean pair of trowsers to search:

Having found them, he asked, with a few nervous twitches, "My dear, may we put on our new Sunday breeches ?"

THE BATTLE OF LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.
Geo. H. Boker.

"GIVE me but two brigades," said Hooker, frowning at for

tified Lookout,

"And I'll engage to sweep yon mountain clear of that mock

ing rebel rout !"

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