Abraham Davenport
by John Greenleaf Whittier �(1807�1892) |
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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,
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,�
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
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
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,
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
My present duty, and my Lord's command
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;
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,
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
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.
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. |
By John Greenleaf Whittier �(1807�1892)
Listed May 31, 2014 |
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| Note: Abraham Davenport was an American politician who served in the Connecticut Governor's Council during the American Revolution, and as a colonel in the Connecticut state militia. |
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