...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...
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...
You can read the entire poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow here.
Seventy-Five, of course, refers to neither 1975 nor 1875, but 1775. This statue of Paul Revere stands in Boston, Massachusetts. If you look closely, you can see in the background the spire of the Old North Church, which played a prominent role in the famous midnight ride of April 18-19, 1775.
Thats a nice poem. Always likd it. :)
ReplyDeleteYou guys would have been better off remaining under the motherland's protective wing then wwe'd have never known George W. Bush or that other political luminary Dan Quayle. What a potatoe - with an e!
ReplyDeleteThanks, A Lady's Life, for your comment. Actually, I had nothing to do with it.
ReplyDeleteYP, did you eat some sour grapes when you went to Hong Kong on Easter holiday? If we had remained British colonies, you and I would probably be having this conversation in German. Failing that, perhaps George W. Bush would have become Chancellor of the Exchequer and Dan Quayle either married to Princess Anne or living at 10 Downing Street. The possibilities are endless.
Another history lesson. I never was much good on dates but I usually got the century right.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the reminder of this date's significance to the American Revolution. We hardly remember we have a revolution in our history.
ReplyDeleteDr. John - I was always struck by Longfellow's line, "Hardly a man is now alive who remembers that famous day and year." By now, that should be NO ONE. But I do "remember" 1875, after a fashion, because that is the year my grandfather, whom I loved very much, was born. And 1975, of course, was just yesterday.
ReplyDeleteJeannelle - Woe to us, if what you say is true. The "shot heard 'round the world" is hardly even an echo today. Eternal vigilance is, after all, the price of liberty. You might enjoy this page.