It is "Paul Revere's Ride,"
already known to many readers as a ballad of the famous incident in the
Revolution which has, in American hearts, immortalized a name which this
war has but the more closely endeared to them. It is one of the most
stirring, ringing, and graphic ballads in the language,--a proper
pendant to Browning's "How they brought the good news from Ghent to
Aix."
The poet, listening with eager delight, seizes the sword of the
landlord's ancestor which was drawn at Concord fight, and tells him that
his grandfather was a grander shape than any old Sir William,
"Clinking about in foreign lands,
With iron gauntlets on his hands,
And on his head an iron pot."
All laughed but the landlord,--
"For those who had been longest dead
Were always greatest in his eyes."
Did honest and dull "Conservatism" have ever a happier description? But
lest the immortal foes of Conservatism and Progress should come to
loggerheads in the conversation, the student opens his lips and breathes
Italy upon the New-England autumn night. He tells the tale of "The
Falcon of Sir Federigo," from the "Decameron." It is an exquisite poem.
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