[Peace-discuss] Eighteenth of April

[John W.]

I wonder, Carl, if there are ANY circumstances under which you would support
armed insurrection against tyranny.  And by "support" I don't mean, of
course, actual fighting, but merely acceding to it intellectually.



On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 12:07 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>wrote:



> Yes, Longfellow's poem was a conscious act of pro-war propaganda in 1860 <
> http://www.danagioia.net/essays/elongfellow.htm>.  It supports not one but
> two wars - armed resistance to the British in 1775 and the armed attack on
> the secessionist states in 1860 - that I would not have supported. But it's
> still a good poem and considering it may actually challenge currently
> politically potent historical myths.
>
> There's a good book about Revere's ride by David Hackett Fischer from about
> 15 years ago (and he mentions Prince Estabrook, the first colonial
> militiaman wounded in Revolutionary War).  --CGE
>
> On 4/18/10 4:31 PM, Morton K. Brussel wrote:
>
>> 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 waken and listen to hear
>> The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
>> And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
>>
>> Longfellow wrote this on April 19, 1860, with forebodings of a Civil War?
>> Revere's ride is said to be on April 18, 1775.
>>
>>
>> On Apr 18, 2010, at 1:19 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>>
>> 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...
>>
>>

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