FOREFATHERS' DAY 45 



menacing as it had been on that Friday night 

 three centuries before when the Pilgrims' shallop 

 beat in by the point, its tiny white sail drowned 

 like the wing of a seagull in the dusky welter of 

 the sea. 



That night, as on the night that the Pilgrims 

 came, the wind changed to the westward and 

 blew the storm to sea. Yet all night from Cole's 

 Hill I saw the dark clouds to seaward, lingering 

 there and refusing to be driven completely away, 

 and in the gray of dawn the morning star rose 

 out of them, overmatching with its clear light that 

 of the Gurnet which shone from the murk of 

 their depths below. The frozen ground rang 

 beneath the heel and the cold had bitten deep. 

 Out of the northwest a few flakes of snow came 

 and it was long before the sun shone through the 

 clouds and touched the top of Manomet Hill. 

 Yet when it did it came with a burst of golden 

 glory and filled the sky with such rosy and be- 

 nign colors that one half expected to see a flight 

 of Raphael's cherubs through it to earth. And 

 all the land beneath was softened with a blue haze 

 from east to south, making of it a country of ro- 

 mance through which pricked towers of Aladdin 



