The Midnight Ride of Dawes and Prescott
A retelling of Longfellow’s The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride too long unclear,
Not one lone horseman through April’s gloom,
But three who galloped with freedom’s doom.
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five,
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers well that fateful quest,
When liberty’s riders rode out to the west.
He said to his friends, “The signal’s near,
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the road will be ready to ride,
To wake the towns through the countryside.”
Then Dawes took saddle, a westward track,
While Revere turned north and didn’t look back;
And Prescott, waiting, would join before dawn,
When the British patrols pressed fierce and strong.
A friend in the belfry, tall and still,
Hung the lanterns high on the hill.
Two lights gleamed from the church’s tower,
And the riders were off in that midnight hour.
Through Charlestown streets the hoofbeats rang,
Past Medford farmsteads the summons sang,
Till window and door flew open wide.
“Up, ye farmers, awake!” they cried.
“Arm and gather, for war draws near!
The Regulars march with sword and spear!”
And the country folk, startled from bed,
Seized their muskets with faces red.
But lurking in darkness, the redcoats came,
A mounted patrol to end the flame;
And Revere was taken, his journey stayed,
Though bravely and loudly, the call he made.
Yet Dawes broke free with his steed still fast,
By wood and meadow the night he passed;
While Prescott vaulted the orchard wall,
His horse leapt high and out sped them all.
Onward he sped through Concord’s gate,
Shouting the word before ’twas too late:
“The soldiers are marching, the foe is near!
To arms! To arms! The time is here!”
From lantern’s glow to the farmyard’s cry,
The news went racing, mile on mile;
And farmers gathered with powder dry,
Their hearts aflame, their spirits high.
So when at the bridge the dawn was red,
And the first shots of the war were sped,
’It was Dawes and Prescott, whose midnight quest
Had summoned the people from east to west.
Therefore, my children, remember well,
The truth of the tale that history tells:
Not Revere alone through the dark he rode,
But Dawes and Prescott, who bore the load.
By Rick McGrath, Ph.D.
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