And so, from a brown homestead, where the Sound

Drinks the small tribute of the Mianas,

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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
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-

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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 barn-yard fowls
Roosted; the cattle at the pasture bars

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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

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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,

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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.
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

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My present duty, and my Lord's command

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To occupy till he come. So, at the post
Where be 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;
And therefore, with all reverence, I would say
Let God do his work, we will see to ours.

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Bring in the candles." And they brought them in.
Then by the flaring lights the Speaker read,

Albeit with husky voice and shaking hands,

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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

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The shrewd dry humor natural to the man;

His awestruck 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.

And there he stands, in memory, to this day

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The sun, that brief December day,
Rose cheerless over hills of gray;
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon;
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,

Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,

A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east: we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air.

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores-
Brought in the wood from out of doors,
Littered the stalls, and from the mows
Raked down the herd's-grass for the cows;
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn,
And, sharply clashing horn on horn,
Impatient down the stanchion rows
The cattle shake their walnut bows,
While, peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold's pole of birch,
The cock his crested helmet bent

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A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed,