A midnight ride? Nay, child, for a year
He rode with a message that could not wait.
Eighteen hundred and forty-two;
No railroad then had gone crashing through
To the Western coast; not a telegraph wire
Had guided there the electric fire;
But a fire burned in one strong man's breast
For a beacon light. You shall hear the rest.
He said to his wife; "At the Fort to-day,
At Walla Walla, I heard them say