"Paul Revere's Ride"
By: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Poetry Terms
Rhyme Scheme
1.)"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 how alive;..."(Longfellow 629).
- It is the rhyme scheme AABB because hear, Revere rhyme and five, alive rhyme.
End Rhyme
2.) "A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!/ He springs to the saddle, the bridal he turns,/ But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight/ a second lamp in the belfry burns!"(Longfellow 632).
- It is end rhyme because the rhyme is at the end of each line. For example, light, sight, and turns, burns. They all rhyme.
Subject
3.) "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 th ehour of darkness and peril and need,/ The people will waken and listen to hear/ The hurrying hoofbeats of that steed,/ And the midnight message of Paul Revere"(Longfellow 633).
- The tone of the poem is determined. It is determined because Revere was sent on a duty, and he knew that he was going to succeed in it.
Historical References
- April 18, 1775, Dr. Joseph Warren sent Revere to go to Lexington, Massachusetts to warn people that the Redcoats were coming.
- Employed by Boston Committee of Correspondence and Massachusetts Committee of safety as an express rider to carry stuff as far to New York and Philadelphia
- Was accounted by 2 other men doing the same thing by the names of William Dawes and Samuel Prescott
- All 3 men were arrested, but Dawes and Prescott soon escaped
- Revere was released when some time passed to return to Lexington to see part of battle on the Lexington Green
Comparison
Horses:
"Horses, they bring such joy,/ Horses, they’re like oversized toys./ Horses, they make the world go ‘round,/ Horses, they make the best sounds./ Horses, they hardly ever miss a beat,/ Horses, they’re always so sweet./ Horses, they give us freedom in life,/ Horses, they show us beauty and strife./ Horses, they’re the closest thing to perfection,/ Horses, they’re full of action./ Horses, they’ll be a girl’s best friend,/ Horses, they’ll be there til the end."
"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 how alive;..."(Longfellow 629).
These two poems are compared simply because they bothe have to do with horses. They both have to do with horses because Paul Revere rode a horse on his journey to warn the village folk.
Citations
Lucky You. "Horses." PoemHunter.com. N.p., 23 Jan. 2011. Web. 16 Jan. 2014.