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The event has been immortalized in the line “One if by land, and two if by sea” in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1860 poem “Paul Revere’s Ride.”

His backup plan - lighting either one or two lanterns as signals from the steeple of Boston’s Old North Church - is immortalized in a line in “Paul Revere’s Ride,” a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem: “One if by land, and two if by sea …”

In the American Revolution, Paul Revere’s signal was famously to look for lanterns in the Old North Church in Boston — “one if by land, and two if by sea” — to describe the British approach.

As it happens, all these are by Longfellow — the subject of Nicholas Basbanes’s new biography “Cross of Snow”— and they share certain characteristics: They are narrative poems, patriotic in character and chockablock with memorable lines: “One, if by land, and two, if by sea,” “Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?,”

Revere’s backup plan - preparations to light either one or two lanterns as signals from the steeple of Boston’s Old North Church - is immortalized in a line in “Paul Revere’s Ride,” a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem: “One if by land, and two if by sea …”