Paul Revere’s Ride, With Apologies to Longfellow
I just dug this up in The Atlantic archives. Apparently, this was Longfellow’s first draft of the immortal “Paul Revere’s Ride.”
LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear
Of the early evening ride of Paul Revere,
On the twentieth, or twenty-first, of May, or possibly June, in Seventy-six, or maybe Seventy-seven;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who refudiates that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, while ringing those bells, ‘We must see the French a-coming
By land or sea or some other way, maybe by air, from the town to-night,
And tell our British friends, and our British enemies,
And warn them of bears, the big majestic polar bears, that lurk amid the French a-strumming
Their mandolins, and other French instruments, that make a patriot so squirmish.
hehe.
Read the whole thing.