And sought, amid thy faithful clan, A refuge for an outlawed man, Dishonoring thus thy royal nameFetters and warder for the Græme!"

His chains of gold the king unstrung, The links o'er Malcolm's neck he flung, Then gently drew the glittering band, And laid the clasp on Ellen's hand.

-Sir Walter Scott.

L'

ISTEN, 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 friends, "If the British march
By land or sea from 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 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 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 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 bleeting 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 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-beats of that steed
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
-Henry W. Longfellow.

PAUL

AUL VENAREZ heard them say, in the frontier town, that day,

That a band of Red Plume's warriors was upon the trail of death;

Heard them tell of murder done-three men killed at Rocky Run.

“They're in danger up at Crawford's," said Venarez, under breath.

Crawford's "-thirty miles away-was a settlement, that lay

In a green and pleasant valley of the mighty wilder

ness;

Half a score of homes was there, and in one a maiden fair

Held the heart of Paul Venarez-" Paul Venarez'

little Bess."

So no wonder he grew pale when he heard the settler's tale

Of the men he had seen murdered yesterday, at Rocky Run.

"Not a soul will dream," he said, "of the danger that's ahead;

By my love for little Bessie, I must see that something's done."

Not a moment he delayed, when his brave resolve was made.

"Why, my man," his comrades told him, when they knew his daring plan,

"You are going straight to death." But he answered, "Save your breath,

I may fail to get to Crawford's, but I'll do the best I can."

O'er the forest rail he sped, and his thoughts flew on ahead

To the little band at Crawford's, thinking not of danger near.

"Oh, God help me save," cried he, "little Bess!" And fast and free

Trusty Nell bore on the hero of the far away frontier.

Low and lower sank the sun. He drew rein at Rocky Run;

"Here these men met death, my Nellie," and he stroked his horse's mane:

"So will they we go to warn, ere the breaking of the

"I will save them yet," he cried. 'Bessie Lee shall know I died

For her sake." And then he halted in the shelter of a hill:

From his buckskin shirt he took, with weak hands a little book;

And he tore a blank leaf from it. "This," said he "shall be my will."

From a branch a twig he broke, and he dipped his pen of oak

In the red blood that was dripping from the wound below the heart.

"Rouse," he wrote, "before too late. Red Plume's warriors lie in wait.

Good-bye, Bess! God bless you always." Then he felt the warm tears start.

Then he made his message fast, love's first letter, and its last;

To his saddle-bow he tied it, while his lips were white with pain,

"Bear my message, if not me, safe to little Bess," said he.

Then he leaned down in the saddle, and clutched hard the sweaty mane.

Just at dusk, a horse of brown, flecked with foam, came panting down

To the settlement at Crawford, and she stopped at Bessie's door.

But her rider seemed asleep. Ah, his slumber was so deep

Bessie's voice could never wake him, if she called for

ever more.

You will hear the story told by the young and by the

old

In the settlement at Crawford's, of the night when Red Plume came;

Of the sharp and bloody fight; how the chief fell, and the flight

Of the panic-stricken warriors. Then they speak Venarez' name

In an awed and reverent way, as men utter "Let us pray,"

As we speak the name of heroes, thinking how they lived and died;

So his memory is kept green, while his face and heaven between

Grow the flowers Bessie planted, ere they laid her by his side.

-Anonymous.

RING forth the horse!'-the horse was

66 BRIN brought,

In truth, he was a noble steed,

A Tartar of the Ukraine breed,

Who looked as though the speed of thought

Were in his limbs; but he was wild,

Wild as the wild deer, and untaught,

With spur and bridle undefiled,-
'Twas but a day he had been caught;
And snorting, with erected mane,
And struggling fiercely, but in vain,
In the full foam of wrath and dread
To me the desert-born was led;
They bound me on, that menial throng,