An Evening with Longfellow

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Sherwin Cody School of English, 1907 - 111 pages

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Page 99 - 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...
Page 43 - THE shades of night were falling fast, As through an Alpine village passed A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice, A banner with the strange device, Excelsior ! His brow was sad ; his eye beneath, Flashed like a falchion from its sheath, And like a silver clarion rung The accents of that unknown tongue, Excelsior!
Page 102 - 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.
Page 9 - OFTEN I think of the beautiful town That is seated by the sea ; Often in thought go up and down The pleasant streets of that dear- old town, And my youth comes back to me. And a verse of a Lapland song Is haunting my memory still : " A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.
Page 95 - Between the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day's occupations, That is known as the Children's Hour. I hear in the chamber above me The patter of little feet, The sound of a door that is opened, And voices soft and sweet. From my study I see in the lamplight, Descending the broad hall stair, Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra, And Edith with golden hair.
Page 100 - 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...
Page 32 - Colder and louder blew the wind, A gale from the Northeast; The snow fell hissing in the brine, And the billows frothed like yeast. Down came the storm, and smote amain, The vessel in its strength; She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed, Then leaped her cable's length. "Come hither! come hither! my little daughter, And do not tremble so; For I can weather the roughest gale, That ever wind did blow.
Page 53 - Were half the power, that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth, bestowed on camps and courts, Given to redeem the human mind from error, There were no need of arsenals nor forts...
Page 35 - His hair is crisp, and black, and long, His face is like the tan ; His brow is wet with honest sweat, He earns whate'er he can, And looks the whole world in the face, For he owes not any man.
Page 103 - 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...

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