Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wordsworth Longfellow
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 to-night,
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, 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,
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 he climbed 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 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 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 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 Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves 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 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, black 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 meadow 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 redcoats 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 waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
After three space walks, Dextre—the robot that will now service the International Space Station—has been completed today, and is now ready for activation. I was watching it live on NASA TV and grabbed these shots (yes, I am that sad) of this fully-assembled gigantastic space spider. To get a sense of how big it is, check the images after the jump. Update: added new images released by NASA
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Citation
Posté : 08-10-2004 19:23
Comments
I was in total technological awe, till I saw the blurb "and now prepare to die". I note the "monster" looking part appears to be coming out of the canadian portion so shouldnt that read "Prepare to die, eh?"
Dextre.
Canadian for "Giant Robotic Tiki God!"
Looks like a giant break dancer to me
Yeah, it's real great and all, but the thing comes down to Florida every year for the winter and drives 15 in a 45. He also wears Canadian flag thongs to the beach in January.
Yes, I'm from Florida.
They had to go with the French spelling for Dexter, didn't they?
@combat chuck:
well, they are CANADIAN
@combat chuck: Everyone give Chuck a minute to wake up this morning.
It's okay man. Happens to the best of us. :)
"half a fraction of an inch"
What's that in centimeters? ;-)
Dextre has to be an acronym for something. Anyone? Seriously, what was the last time any piece of equipment went into orbit whose name wasn't an acronym?
@Barcard: a few
Yeah actual space stuff and real science are sooo unhip compared to iPods and plastic toys. (?)
If you are building a LEGO Millennium Falcon in your home (and at this point I'd have to say it's a growing "if" unless you're doing the time lapse thing BoingBoing Gadgets beat you to weeks ago) you can probably manage a little joy to be witnessing REAL and ACTUAL developments in space without fear of it appearing to damage your hipster cred with the Gizmodians or anybody else.
I know for a fact that you were filled with wonder and joy at the things we're doing in space because I think that's the kind of person you are, so THERE! :p
Be a booster. We can't get into space without 'em.
@Geisrud:
Demonic
Extra-terrestrial
Xenomorph
Threat
Retaliation
Exterminator
George Bush was quoted as saying, "You go get them there space Aliens, Dex... Dax... You go get 'em Dippy!"
Oh Canada, oh Canada, your robots best not error
Oh Canada, oh Canada, they would induce some terror
@Geisrud:
Dextre (Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator)
Oh you like it now. But just wait until it demands you only talk to it in French, joins a union and sits around the Space Station on strike, drinking beer and playing with his hockey stick telling everyone how it could have made it to the NHL if only its engineers weren't such hosers and programmed it how to skate like good, eh.
(Go Flames Go)
pfft. At best it's an artificial Canadian... Seriously... Where's it's toque? :P
And yes I am Canadian.
@Amsterdaam - KEEP SMILING: Hey! You guys have a huge military that the MP force alone can take over our country... We have spooky people that trek down to Florida in questionable garb and Celine Dion.
P.S. You can keep her.
Ummm, "all with a precision of half a fraction of an inch" is still just a fraction of an inch. All that sentence shows is that a dumb writer is trying to make his message stronger by saying something that actually doesn't make any sense.
Besides, doesn't NASA do most, if not all of their work with metric now? I know the Canadians do. And since the robot is Canadian made, wouldn't the proper and more precise terminology would be more along the lines: "all the precision of .5mm of control?"
/former news producer
//stickler for proper copy, use of English
Where is Johnny Sokko when we need him? Who else can possibly control this metal monster??
@mrsteve007: Yes, I concur.
It's the old Carlin Conundrum: If you take a crumb, and cut it in half, is that two crumbs, or two halves of a crumb?
@mrsteve007: If we have to start making this all proper english, or even lucid, most of the posts and comments will cease. I dont know about everyone else, but I read Giz for substance and not for style.
Now see? Canada is gonna take over the WERLD!
I wonder if it thinks the iPod on the dash is its runt cousin?
I saw some of this action on NASA TV live on the web too. They put a lot of work to put that thing together over the weekend and past couple of days. It's cool as hell to watch this live and also live-track the location of the shuttle and the ISS. It's freakin' flying right along at like 17000mph. Cool. Hey, I'm married okay. I get it all the time :)
um, since this is all about scientific achievement and all, exactly how long is "half a fraction of an inch" ? ;)
@islandhopper: A hair over a smidge.
@Barry99705:
In Canada they call that a coozie hair
I knew Canada was spending their military budget on something. I mean you can't be a huge country like that and not have a huge military budget. Now we know...
I for one welcome our new Canadian controlled Robot Overlords.
@apeguero: your married AND you get it all the time?
You can't understand.
You're frightened because you can't understand it.
I'm going to show you.
I'm going to show all of you.
It takes 430 people to man a starship.
With this, you don't need anyone.
One machine can do all those things
they send men out to do now.
Men no longer need die in space
or on some alien world.
Men can live
and go on to achieve greater things
than fact-finding
and dying for galactic space,
which is neither ours to give or to take.
You can't understand.
We don't want to destroy life.
We want to save it.
Thanks Dr. Daystrom, for trying to save us from ourselves..
too bad one power glitch can render it totally unusable.
I give it less than a year of functionality.
@Curves: And that is why Gawker sites post 40+ items per day of terribly-written faux-reporting copy.
@mrsteve007: Continue the crusade.
To clarify, the Canadian Space Agency website says that Dextre has "millimetre level positioning accuracy" (1/25th of an inch for metric-resisters).
@mrsteve007: Yeah, you are right. I was writing while I was listening to the comments from the presenter and just didn't do research for precise data. I should have, but I just wanted to put the images, which to me were the biggest thing as we have written about the bot and its technical features before. I'll add the info. Oh, yes, and you are banned for being a douchebag.
@strider_mt2k: Watching science is not sad. What I meant is that I spent two hours watching people moving in slooooooowmoooootion as the put the final touches on the bot. LEGO is still in construction. But it won't be time lapse. It will be another thing.
@mrsteve007: "doesn't NASA do most, if not all of their work with metric now? I know the Canadians do."
huh? wait... we do? I'm Canadian and work in Canada and only about 2% of my work is metric.
@Topcat: Yeah, 40+ posts terribly-written post so you can read and terribly write inaccurately comments on.
"millimetre level positioning accuracy" (1/25th of an inch for metric-resisters)."
I'm afraid that's also inaccurate: it's 2 millimeter incremental positioning accuracy (1/12 inch) and 6 millimeters relative to the target (1/4 inch)
Thanks for playing.
@Jesus Diaz: I quoted I was sourcing the CSA's public website for Dextre, which leaves it vaguely at "millimetre scale" (hence quotations). If I'd read the fact sheet initially, I would've quoted the exact numbers.
@Jesus Diaz: No, please, Mr. Jesus Diaz, please, oh, please, do not wield the deadly banhammer! Topcat is merely standing up for what he believes is right! I am sure he means no disrespect, Mr. Jesus Diaz! Spare him from the ugliness of the wicked blows of your banhammer! Put it back in its banhammer-hammock for another time! There will come a day, Mr. Jesus Diaz, when deadly banhammer may be loosed freely on the recalcitrant population, but Topcat is but a waif, a naif, a child among the fierce tigerousness of Gizmodo!! Spare him in the name of all that is sacred, Mr. Jesus Diaz!
@ps61318: Um, he banned the OTHER guy.
I might remind anyone who dislikes the posts or form of Giz (I dont go to any of the other Gawker sites), that they CAN go the hell BACK to work and not read it.....
NASA, like all of science, has ALWAYS used the metric system for everything they do.
@Geisrud:
Deadly EXra Terrestrial Robotic Enigma
@ps61318: I didn't ban him. We don't ban people for disagreeing. We only ban them for acting like douchebags.
@Topcat: If I had read the spec sheet before, I would have quoted it too. But as I said, I just wrote by ear while listening to the live broadcast.
"I was watching it live on NASA TV and grabbed these shots (yes, I am that sad) of this fully-assembled gigantastic space spider"
Hey, thats not sad at all! I've been keeping the NASA TV feed running continuously on my second monitor ever since the launch last Tuesday, watched the ISS docking and all spacewalks so far. Some people could care less, I suppose, but to me, these dudes are friggin' floating around in OUTER SPACE, and we get to watch live! I could watch for hours on end, on pins-and-needles the whole time. There's no better reality TV.
Not bad. You'd think a robot by Dexter would shoot fireballs or sumthin', or a least dodgeballs.
+ Watch video
'Dextre' is French, from the Latin word 'Dextra', meaning dextrous, or right-handed. I wonder if the space station's going to get a Sinistra arm as well?
Time to die stupid humans!
Smart! Naming a giant space-robot after a TV serial killer! I'm gonna sleep in the basement tonight.
@Beelzeboss: It also means demonstrating good skills. Like diestro in spanish (Diestro in spanish, btw, also means "bullfighter"). That's why they put that name to the bot.
Sinistra will probably be the name of the maintenance bot in Spectra's secret space station.
I think Gizmodo should run more articles with "Giant Space Robot" in the headline.
@Brian Sexton: In their headlines, that is.
Is it a bending unit? And will it be last 992 years to befriend (currently) frozen pizza delivery boys?
@LastVigilante: it's always fascinating to watch pictures from up there, I find myself doing it for hours on end.
@Jesus Diaz: Oh, that's very different.
Never mind.
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