Newsgroups: freenet.shrine.songs
From: aa300 (Jerry Murphy)
Subject: Paul Revere, biography
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 90 15:49:58 EST


REVERE, PAUL

{ruh-veer'}

An American patriot and silversmith, Paul Revere, b. Boston, Jan. 1, 1735, d.
May 10, 1818, became a legendary hero at the start of the American Revolution,
when he rode from Charlestown to Lexington, Mass., on the night of Apr. 18,
1775, to warn the countryside of approaching British troops. An official courier
for the Massachusetts Committee of Correspondence, Revere arrived in Lexington
shortly before another rider, William Dawes, and warned John Hancock and Samuel
Adams to escape. Revere then started for Concord accompanied by Dawes and Samuel
Prescott but was halted by a British patrol. Only Prescott reached Concord. 
Revere's exploit was celebrated in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's famous but
generally inaccurate poem, "Paul Revere's Ride" (1863).

A leader of the Sons of Liberty, Revere had earlier been involved in numerous
patriot activities including the Boston Tea Party (1773). In 1779 he par-
ticipated in the Penobscot expedition in Maine; although Revere was accused of
cowardice, a court-martial 2 years later cleared him.

Revere is remembered as much as a craftsman as he is as a patriot. His anti-
British engravings of episodes such as the Boston Massacre were effective
propaganda. He cast musket balls and cannon during the war and designed and
printed the first Continental currency. After the war he became one of New
England's leading silversmiths and a pioneer in the production of copper plating
in America.   GEORGE ATHAN BILLIAS 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Brigham, Clarence - PAUL REVERE'S ENGRAVING (rev. ed. 1969)
Buhler, Kathryn C. - PAUL REVERE, GOLDSMITH (1956)
    Forbes, Esther - PAUL REVERE AND THE WORLD HE LIVED IN (1942; repr. 1962)
    Goss, Elbridge - THE LIFE OF COLONEL PAUL REVERE (1891; repr. 1972)

'Copyright 1987, Grolier Inc, Academic American Encyclopedia,
Electronic Version'

USED BY PERMISSION, granted January 9, 1988


************************

Newsgroups: freenet.shrine.songs
From: aa300 (Jerry Murphy)
Subject: The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 90 15:51:05 EST


PAUL REVERE'S RIDE
from: Tales of a Wayside Inn; The Landlord's Tale
      by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, (1807-1882).

"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 still alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town tonight,
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 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 sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade, --
By 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 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 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,
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 feerless 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 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.

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 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.


X-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-X
 Another file downloaded from:                                NIRVANAnet(tm)

 &TOTSE                510/935-5845   Walnut Creek, CA         Taipan Enigma
 Burn This Flag        408/363-9766       San Jose, CA                Zardoz
 realitycheck          415/666-0339  San Francisco, CA    Poindexter Fortran
 Governed Anarchy      510/226-6656        Fremont, CA             Eightball
 New Dork Sublime      805/823-1346      Tehachapi, CA               Biffnix
 Lies Unlimited        801/278-2699 Salt Lake City, UT            Mick Freen
 Atomic Books          410/669-4179      Baltimore, MD               Baywolf
 Sea of Noise          203/886-1441        Norwich, CT             Mr. Noise
 The Dojo              713/997-6351       Pearland, TX               Yojimbo
 Frayed Ends of Sanity 503/965-6747     Cloverdale, OR              Flatline
 The Ether Room        510/228-1146       Martinez, CA Tiny Little Super Guy
 Hacker Heaven         860/456-9266        Lebanon, CT         The Visionary
 The Shaven Yak        510/672-6570        Clayton, CA             Magic Man
 El Observador         408/372-9054        Salinas, CA         El Observador
 Cool Beans!           415/648-7865  San Francisco, CA        G.A. Ellsworth
 DUSK Til Dawn         604/746-5383   Cowichan Bay, BC         Cyber Trollis
 The Great Abyss       510/482-5813        Oakland, CA             Keymaster

                          "Raw Data for Raw Nerves"
X-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-X