The Coming of the Dawn 



to get Billy out from a closet in which 

 she had taken refuge, while I went 

 into raptures over the Satanic blazing 

 grandeur of a wild electric midnight 

 storm. She loves Nature too, but 

 not in her (Nature's) wilder moods, nor 

 yet at 4:00 A.M. Had I asked that 

 she join me in watching the earth 

 awake, I should probably have been 

 requested, with more or less gracious- 

 ness, to look at the spectacle as long as 

 I liked myself, but to please allow her 

 to get her morning nap, and mail my 

 account of the performance later, if I 

 liked. And so I sit alone. 



On the stroke of four a crow caws 

 down there in the timber by the bridge; 

 whereupon a robin from some secret 

 place about the lawn indulges in a 

 drowsy chirp. Some other morning 

 this sleepy note from somewhere under- 

 neath the window may precede the 

 call of the big black brother in the 

 woods. In fact, sometimes one starts 

 the ornithological breakfast ball about 

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