A poem rewritten one year ago (with apologies)
Note from John Curry:
Dennis Leone's Ride
(With apologies to
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
x
Listen my children and I shall intone
Of the midnight ride of Dennis Leone,
On the sixteenth of May, in two-oh-oh-three
And there’s still many a retiree
Who remembers that famous day and tone.
He said to his friends, "If the Board members march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the OEA 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 county’s village and farm,
For the retired folk to be up and to arm."
Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the opposite shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
Like the Somerset, British man-of-war;
Like a phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
Like the huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile, his CORE friends through alley and street
Wander and watch, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around them they hear
The muster of men at the STRS door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Then one climbed the tower of the OEA,
By the gilded stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre 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 roof of the Taj,
And the moonlight flowing over all.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Dennis Leone.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now he 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 OEA,
As it rose above the streets on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre 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 retirees 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 city 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.
You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the STRS Old Guard had fired and fled, ---
How the retirees gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the recalcitrants 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 Dennis Leone;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every county's 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,
posted by Kathie Bracy at 10:27 PM
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