Filed under: Freedom, History, Literature, Military | Tags: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
[A little Henry Wadsworth Longfellow for the eighteenth of April]
Today is the 237th anniversary of the “Shot heard Round the World”
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 now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend,”If the British march
By land or sea from the town tonight,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light—
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,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”
Then he said, “Good night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, a British man-of-war:
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street,
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Then he climbed to the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the somber rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade—
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.
Beneath in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night-encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay—
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now gazed at the landscape far and near.
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth
And turned and tightened his saddle girth:
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and somber and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!
A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides:
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
It was twelve by the village clock,
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.
It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.
You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.
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 for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will awaken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
A lovely paperback edition illustrated by Ted Rand, if you have kids.
Rick Moran has a nice bit of history of the day at American Thinker. It’s hard to imagine an essentially unarmed, unprepared nation without even an army taking on the British Empire, but Americans have never been afraid of a challenge.
The rain begins. This is no summer rain,
Dropping the blotches of wet on the dusty road:
This rain is slow, without thunder or hurry:
There is plenty of time—there will be months of rain.
Lost in the hills, the old gray farmhouses
Hump their backs against it, and smoke from their chimneys
Struggles through weighted air. The sky is sodden with water,
It sags against the hills, and the wild geese,
Wedge-flying, brush the heaviest cloud with their wings.
The farmers move unhurried. The wood is in,
The hay has long been in, the barn lofts piled
Up to the high windows, dripping yellow straws.
There will be plenty of time now, time that will smell of fires,
And drying leather, and catalogues, and apple cores.
The farmers clean their boots, and whittle, and drowse.
Jeanne McCahey
from Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle
Filed under: Capitalism, History, Humor, Liberalism, Literature | Tags: Diversity, Radical Chic, Straight Line Thinking
There is a disturbing tendency among many towards straight-line thinking. If the stock market is down today, it will only be down more tomorrow and we’re all doomed. I just saw an article claiming that a house is no longer a good investment now or in the foreseeable future.
A bad food crop means world starvation and a slight warming trend means catastrophic global warming. Peak oil falls into the same category. This only seems to work with negative events. Nobody seizes upon a wonderful day and writes about it’s being the harbinger of constant wonderful days. Is it just a gloomy disposition?
President Obama has been insistent upon comparing his recession to the Great Depression. Whether that’s because he wants to be compared to FDR, or wants people to understand the terrors he faces, I don’t know. The actual recession is far less serious than the Great Depression, and has only been made worse by administration ineptness, and adherence to discredited economic policies.
Then there is the problem of confusing cause and effect. The New York Times’ David Leonhardt goes off on the real culprit — consumer spending. Discretionary spending on restaurant meals, entertainment, education and insurance is down in this slump almost 7 percent, when it’s never fallen before more than 3 percent per capita. It’s all the consumers’ fault.
I have been rereading a wonderful essay by Tom Wolfe from the 1970s — Radical Chic —which describes the courting of romantic radicals like the Black Panthers, striking grapeworkers and the Young Lords by New York’s socially elite. He focuses particularly on one symbolic event: the gathering of the radically chic at Leonard Bernstein’s Park Avenue apartment to meet spokesmen of the Black Panther Party, to hear them out and talk over ways of aiding their cause. The players and the event have changed, but the strange phenomenon continues.
You had Jane Fonda celebrating the brave Viet Cong peasants, and heroin chic in which fashion decreed that the in look was that of an addict on the street. Everybody is wearing Sadat’s keffiyeh, We have torn jeans, worn-out jeans, clothes that look that they came from your grandmother’s ragbag.
Destroyed cotton t-shirt , Balmain, $1,624, collection at Jeffrey, NYC. Canvas shorts, Bottega Veneta $590. Shell earrings, Celestina, $780. Webbing Belt, Burberry $ 325. Ribbon ID bracelets, Mianstal $120 each. The Look : total cost $3,559 (plus tax). (Photo and prices from American Digest)
__________________________________________
Diversity reigns on the nation’s campuses, which oddly seems to mean only color of skin and ethnicity — which are only the most diverse things about a person according to those who are deeply fixated on race. The rest of us think that two people of whatever color and ethnicity who are both Army brats probably have a lot more in common than two people who happen to come from different parts of Africa. A couple of young moms who had their babies on the same day in the same hospital probably care more about that fact that about the difference in the color of their babies.
I don’t venture to connect all the dots, nor to pose some philosophic truth. I’m just noticing that there’s a lot of fuzzy thinking going on.
[A little Henry Wadsworth Longfellow for the eighteenth of April]
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 now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend,”If the British march
By land or sea from the town tonight,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light—
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,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”
Then he said, “Good night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, a British man-of-war:
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street,
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Then he climbed to the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the somber rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade—
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.
Beneath in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night-encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay—
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now gazed at the landscape far and near.
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth
And turned and tightened his saddle girth:
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and somber and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!
A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides:
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
It was twelve by the village clock,
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.
It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.
You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.
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 for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will awaken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
A lovely paperback edition illustrated by Ted Rand, if you have kids!
Like this:
Filed under: Economy, Foreign Policy, Literature, Statism | Tags: India, Opulence and Thrift
Way back in 1978, M.M. Kaye published a big blockbuster novel,with nearly as many pages as the health care bill, a “towering novel of love and war” about the India of the 1850s — the RAJ. M.M. Kaye was born in Simla, the summer place of the British viceroy; and when she married, her husband was an officer in Queen Victoria’s Own Corps of Guides, so she knew India well. The story she told was based on bits of history about a colorful royal wedding and procession. She described the procession:
Close on eight thousand humans and more than half as many baggage animals were worse than a plague of locusts; it was clear that without planning and forethought their effect upon the country they passed through could be devastating and equally disastrous. …
The mile-long column moved at a foot’s pace, plodding through the dust at the same leisurely pace as the elephants and stopping at frequent intervals to rest, talk or argue, to wait for stragglers or draw water from the wayside wells. …
The four state elephants bore magnificent howdahs of beaten gold and silver in which the Rajkumaries and their ladies together with their younger brother and certain senior members of the bridal party, would ride in procession on the day of the wedding, and it had also been expected that the brides would travel in them on the journey. But the slow, rolling stride of the great beasts made the howdahs sway, and the youngest bride (who was also the most important one, being the Maharajah’s full sister) complained that it made her feel ill, and demanded that both she and her sister, from whom she refused to be parted, be transferred to a ruth — a bullock-drawn cart with a domed roof and embroidered curtains.
What made me remember this and drag it out, was the account of President Obama’s visit to India. It is announced as a “strategic ” visit with a special interest in celebrating Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights.
In ledgers with trillion-dollar stimulus packages and $600 billion Fed “easings,” the $200 million-a-day price tag for these 10 days will be little more than a blip on the ledger.
Fully five fully loaded jet aircraft will fly Obama, his helicopters, and his party of 3,000 in luxury that would embarrass a rajah. The entire Taj hotel — 570 rooms — has been reserved along with space next door.
Why the president requires an entourage of 3,000 to support a face-to-face meeting with India’s prime minister is unknown. All that remains to be required are the caparisoned elephants and the howdahs of beaten gold and silver.
I suppose that Mr. Obama assumes that the President of the United States should travel in style befitting the nation which he regards as no more exceptional than any other. But it is fairly annoying to the peasants in flyover country who are currently unemployed through no fault of their own, but rather through the direct actions of the U.S. government.
If I remember correctly, Franklin Delano Roosevelt once served hot dogs to the King and Queen of England.
ADDENDUM: The $200 million a day figure is widely circulated nonsense. I apologize. American presidents do travel with large entourages. The security detachment is large, and protection of the president is important. It does, however, give rise to the notions of an” Imperial” presidency. Perhaps it can’t be helped, but Obama seems unusually unconscious of the extent to which his actions appear profligate when the country’s economy is in such dire shape.
Filed under: Literature, Movies, News | Tags: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J. K. Rowling
The final book of the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will be broken into two movies, the first hitting theaters next November, with the grand finale following that next summer. This trailer includes footage from both movies. How do I know that, you ask? Because I’m such an enormous Harry Potter fan/geek, that I instantly recognized most of the scenes in the trailer, and then went back over them, shot by shot, frame by frame to identify those that flashed by too quickly the first time, to make sure I didn’t miss anything.
But, no, before you ask, I do not own a wand, nor do I wear costumes to the movie openings.
In fact, while the movies are great fun, I always end up being a little disappointed because I am more a fan of the books, and the movies never quite measure up.
Nonetheless, the trailer looks awesome! They always do. I can’t wait!
(If you click on the video, you can watch the trailer in high def on YouTube)
Whenever I chance upon something special, I want to push it on everyone, demanding that they appreciate promptly what I have so enjoyed. In this case, I want you to meet an old friend because I know you will like him, and to point out his work which I find constantly interesting.
My enthusiasm is for the columns of Canadian journalist David Warren. He is a wonderful writer, always surprising, always forcing his readers to view the world in new ways.
In an essay written earlier in September entitled “At Sea“, he begins with an eight month long thunderstorm 3,000 kilometers across, drops in briefly at the Jet Propulsion Lab at NASA, and travels along the Arctic shores of Russia, with a feint towards global warming. And ends up with the tale of a misdirected pigeon, a “stupid greedy unthankful bird” far out at sea. A tour de force.
“Anti-anti” examines the Obama administration’s decision to cancel the U.S. missile defense shield installations in the Czech Republic and Poland. And takes up the question of what Russia might offer in return. Anyone confused by the pronouncements of our own mainstream media will appreciate his clear analysis.
Bookmark his website. Visit it frequently, and when you have time, explore his archives. You will be glad you did, especially if you appreciate the English language.
Filed under: Entertainment, Literature, Movies, News, Pop Culture | Tags: Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince — if the new trailer is any indication. Watch it in high resolution here.
Naturally, the books are better. They always are. If you haven’t read them yet, I highly recommend them, but you need to start with book one. The Half-Blood Prince is one of the top-two in the series. Enormously entertaining. I read it straight through the day it arrived. The movie promises to be just as exciting.
I can hardly wait!
Filed under: Conservatism, Freedom, Literature, Movies, Pop Culture, Television, The Constitution | Tags: Culture War, Democrat Demagogues, liberalism
Filed under: Entertainment, Freedom, History, Humor, Literature | Tags: Books, History, Love of Reading
How could I resist a picture that combines a yellow lab with a book? I want to talk about books and reading. In particular, about the kind of book that you get lost in; and the kind of book that you want to read and re-read, over and over. Those are fairly rare.
There are, of course, thrillers that you cannot put down, speeding through the pages to learn how it turns out. They can be absorbing and fun, but once you have found out what happens, it is spoiled for a second reading, for the suspense is all that was there. Thrillers often are inflicted with wooden characters, improbable situations and are acceptable only because the author manages his plot and suspense well.
What have you ever read that has it all? Fully developed characters, fascinating detail, believable situations, and you want to read them over and over.
There are the books that are “should” books, those that conventional wisdom says you should have read. Many of them you probably read in high school: The Scarlet Letter, Hamlet, Macbeth, Red Badge of Courage and 1984, for example. And there are lots that you should read to appreciate milestones in literature and the influence that literature has had on people through the ages. But, assuming you went on to become an adult reader, are those books the ones that gave you the most pleasure?
My favorites are Patrick O’Brien’s series of the Royal Navy adventures of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. There are 20 books in the series, and I have read them all over and over. The characters are clearly defined in the first chapter of the first book, and you are hooked. The books are dense with science and action right out of the pages of the real captain’s logs of the Royal Navy in the early 19th century. I have read them all at least 7 or 8 times. I loved the movie of Master adn Commander as well, though the movie combines episodes from several books.
Then there is Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles, a story of a classical hero in the age of the Renissance, a series of 5 books, beginning with The Game of Kings. I also like Anton Myrer’s Once an Eagle, and The Last Convertible, which each stand alone. And currently, I am enjoying Alan Furst’s atmospheric stories of Europe as the shadow of World War II descends.
There are many books that I admire, that I would recommend to anyone; but not so many that I read over and over. Do you have any that you return to again and again?
Filed under: Art, History, Literature | Tags: British History, British Tradition, King George III, Royal Pomp
Here is an odd bit of trivia for you. I received David McCullough’s 1776 for Christmas. He begins the book with a description of the procession “on the afternoon of Thursday October 26, 1775, in which His Royal Majesty George III, King of England rode in royal splendor from St. James’s Palace to the Palace of Westminster, there to address the opening of Parliament on the increasingly distressing issue of war in America.”
An estimated 60,000 people turned out to line the route through St. James Park.
By tradition, two Horse Grenadiers with swords drawn rode in the lead to clear the way, followed by gleaming coaches filled with nobility, then a clattering of Horse Guards, the Yeomen of the Guard in red and gold livery, and a rank of footmen, also in red and gold. Finally came the King in his colossal golden chariot pulled by eight magnificent cream-colored horses (Hanoverian Creams), a single postilion riding the left lead horse, and six footmen at the side.
No mortal on earth rode in such style as their King, the English knew. Twenty-four feet in length and thirteen feet high, the royal coach weighed nearly four tons, enough to make the ground tremble when under way. George III had had it built years before, insisting that it be “superb.” Three gilded cherubs on top — symbols of England, Scotland, and Ireland — held high a gilded crown, while over the heavy spoked wheels, front and back, loomed four gilded sea gods, formidable reminders that Britannia ruled the waves. Allegorical scenes on the door panels celebrated the nation’s heritage, and windows were of sufficient size to provide a full view of the crowned sovereign within.
It was as though the very grandeur, wealth, and weight of the British Empire were rolling past — an empire that by now included Canada, that reached from the seaboard of Massachusetts and Virginia to the Mississippi and beyond, from the Caribbean to the shores of Bengal. London, its population at nearly a million souls, was the largest city in Europe and widely considered the capital of the world.
The coach is housed at the Royal Mews, and is used for Coronations and formal occasions. It was last used for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee in 2002. I’ve probably seen it in pictures, but until this description, I never focused solely on the coach itself, and it is well worth focusing on. ( It is bigger than my living room! ). The Royal Mews houses a whole raft of state coaches, but King George III’s coach is indeed something special. You can download a cut-out-and-paste-model of the coach here, if you are so inclined. For size relationship, remember that a standing footman barely comes to the bottom of the coach windows. It is indeed superb.
