Literary Text: from “Paul Revere’s Ride” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Read these opening stanzas from "Paul Revere’s Ride" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Then, answer the question(s).

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.


Think about the difference between literal meanings and figurative meanings. In which description from the third stanza is the meaning more figurative than literal?
A. Silently rowed (line 16)
B. the moon rose over the bay (line 17)
C. swinging wide at her moorings (line 18)
D. A phantom ship (line 20)