| |
| IN the old days (a custom laid aside | |
| With breeches and cocked hats) the people sent | |
| Their wisest men to make the public laws. | |
| And so, from a brown homestead, where the Sound | |
| Drinks the small tribute of the Mianas, | 5 |
| Waved over by the woods of Rippowams, | |
| And hallowed by pure lives and tranquil deaths, | |
| Stamford sent up to the councils of the State | |
| Wisdom and grace in Abraham Davenport. | |
| |
| ’T was on a May-day of the far old year | 10 |
| Seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell | |
| Over the bloom and sweet life of the Spring, | |
| Over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon, | |
| A horror of great darkness, like the night | |
| In day of which the Norland sagas tell,— | 15 |
| The Twilight of the Gods. The low-hung sky | |
| Was black with ominous clouds, save where its rim | |
| Was fringed with a dull glow, like that which climbs | |
| The crater’s sides from the red hell below. | |
| Birds ceased to sing, and all the barnyard fowls | 20 |
| Roosted; the cattle at the pasture bars | |
| Lowed, and looked homeward; bats on leathern wings | |
| Flitted abroad; the sounds of labor died; | |
| Men prayed, and women wept; all ears grew sharp | |
| To hear the doom-blast of the trumpet shatter | 25 |
| The black sky, that the dreadful face of Christ | |
| Might look from the rent clouds, not as he looked | |
| A loving guest at Bethany, but stern | |
| As Justice and inexorable Law. | |
| |
| Meanwhile in the old State House, dim as ghosts, | 30 |
| Sat the lawgivers of Connecticut, | |
| Trembling beneath their legislative robes. | |
| “It is the Lord’s Great Day! Let us adjourn,” | |
| Some said; and then, as if with one accord, | |
| All eyes were turned to Abraham Davenport. | 35 |
| He rose, slow cleaving with his steady voice | |
| The intolerable hush. “This well may be | |
| The Day of Judgment which the world awaits; | |
| But be it so or not, I only know | |
| My present duty, and my Lord’s command | 40 |
| To occupy till he come. So at the post | |
| Where he hath set me in his providence, | |
| I choose, for one, to meet him face to face,— | |
| No faithless servant frightened from my task, | |
| But ready when the Lord of the harvest calls; | 45 |
| And therefore, with all reverence, I would say, | |
| Let God do his work, we will see to ours. | |
| Bring in the candles.” And they brought them in. | |
| |
| Then by the flaring lights the Speaker read, | |
| Albeit with husky voice and shaking hands, | 50 |
| An act to amend an act to regulate | |
| The shad and alewive fisheries. Whereupon | |
| Wisely and well spake Abraham Davenport, | |
| Straight to the question, with no figures of speech | |
| Save the ten Arab signs, yet not without | 55 |
| The shrewd dry humor natural to the man: | |
| His awe-struck colleagues listening all the while, | |
| Between the pauses of his argument, | |
| To hear the thunder of the wrath of God | |
| Break from the hollow trumpet of the cloud. | 60 |
| |
| And there he stands in memory to this day, | |
| Erect, self-poised, a rugged face, half seen | |
| Against the background of unnatural dark, | |
| A witness to the ages as they pass, | |
| That simple duty hath no place for fear. | 65 |
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