midnight
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 . _ _ `` 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 farm yard 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 forevermore ! For born 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 waken and listen to hear The hurrying hoof beats of that steed , And the midnight message of Paul Revere . '' _ How my soul thrills with recollection when I think where I stood in Carpenters Hall , Philadelphia , on the 4th of July , 1776 , among the signers of the Declaration of Independence , and heard that grandest of human productions proclaimed to the world . Each of the fifty-six signers was a modern Moses in himself , and to-day their heroic statues , in imperishable bronze , should stand aloft on the shining marble copings of the National Capitol . The glowing features and earnest , eloquent tones of