American History 101

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.    
Shoot a flair up at Lexington and Concord,
Those fabled towns of New Hampshire and Vermont
Where General Lee made his valiant stands;. 
And no one will take that flair gun away from me,
Not from my cold, dead hands.   
Of that church, you know the one, with the name, whatever it's called, up in the tower as a signal light,--    
One, if by land, and two, if by air;            
And I on the opposite shore will be, in a very large bus;
That is painted so patriotically;    
And I will ride my white steed so fair. 
Then I will ride a Harley, that I was pulling on a trailer behind the bus, and spread the alarm,  
Man, I love the smell of that emissions
That smell is freedom, carried by horse,
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
Not horse emissions, chopper emissions. 
But horse emissions are very patriotic. 
And I will warn the British that the British are coming.
Which should confuse them very much.    
 
Then he said, 'Good-night!' and with shotgun in hand            
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, that Last Frontier, 
We were rowing because the outboard motor didn't work, thanks to the EPA;    
Just as the sun rose over the Mighty Mississippi,    
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay    
The Somerset, British man-of-war; 
Which sounds a little gay;    
A phantom ship, part of our hollowed-out Democrat Navy
Across the moon like a prison bar, where we should lock up all the French,    
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified, by Fox,    
And by its own reflection in the tide, not the detergent, but the water that comes in from the sea in waves, I'm not sure how exactly.



*With unrefudiated gratitude to Frank Vollmer

Comments

Made my day! Did you see that some of her supporters were attempting to do some editing in Wikipedia to match up with SP's remarks?
pcflamingo said…
Oh. My. Word. That was so awesome. LOVE love love it. Thank you for the public service of passing this along!
altar ego said…
The tears, they are a-rollin' down my patriotic Yankee cheeks I'm laughing so hard!
Quiltdivajulie said…
Great job finding and sharing this!
Ray said…
LOL!!! She's too much - can you even believe it?????
Salem Stitcher said…
My belly hurts from laughing. Thank you for that!
Margie said…
You are my new BFF quilting/liberal blogger. Too bad you are so far away or I would invite you over for a glass of wine.
I live in NH and I heard her comments and I can hardly believe that she may one day be our president. It's all over the newspapers here. I had to read the full comment and her "clarification" several times because I just could not believe it.
Anonymous said…
Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

Bobbi no blog
Don't forget that the whole reason was so we wouldn't have to give up our guns, according toSarah.
Well done!
We are going on a family vacation in our RV soon. I'm thinking of painting my name in 3foot letters on the side so the paparazzi can find me as I tour the socialist National Parks on the socialist highways of America. Heck, I could get rich. It works for $arah. I can't believe some people are such fools. Sigh.
pcflamingo said…
I must say the comments on here are HILARIOUS - especially the one about driving an RV on the socialist highways to the socialist national parks. Quilting and intelligent conversation = WIN.