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EVANGELINE IN ACADIE
SOMEWHAT apart from the village, and nearer the Basin of Minas, | |
| Benedict Bellefontaine, the wealthiest farmer of Grand-Pré, | |
| Dwelt on his goodly acres; and with him, directing his household, | |
| Gentle Evangeline lived, his child, and the pride of the village. | |
| Stalworth and stately in form was the man of seventy winters; | 5 |
| Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is covered with snowflakes; | |
| White as the snow were his locks, and his cheeks as brown as the oak-leaves. | |
| Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen summers. | |
| Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by the wayside, | |
| Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown shade of her tresses! | 10 |
| Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that feed in the meadows. | |
| When in the harvest heat she bore to the reapers at noontide | |
| Flagons of home-brewed ale, ah! fair in sooth was the maiden. | |
| Fairer was she when, on Sunday morn, while the bell from its turret | |
| Sprinkled with holy sounds the air, as the priest with his hyssop | 15 |
| Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters blessings upon them, | |
| Down the long street she passed, with her chaplet of beads and her missal, | |
| Wearing her Norman cap, and her kirtle of blue, and the ear-rings, | |
| Brought in the olden time from France, and since, as an heirloom, | |
| Handed down from mother to child, through long generations. | 20 |
| But a celestial brightness—a more ethereal beauty— | |
| Shone on her face and encircled her form, when, after confession, | |
| Homeward serenely she walked with God’s benediction upon her. | |
| When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music. | |
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| Firmly builded with rafters of oak, the house of the farmer | 25 |
| Stood on the side of a hill commanding the sea; and a shady | |
| Sycamore grew by the door, with a woodbine wreathing around it. | |
| Rudely carved was the porch, with seats beneath; and a footpath | |
| Led through an orchard wide, and disappeared in the meadow. | |
| Under the sycamore-tree were hives over-hung by a penthouse, | 30 |
| Such as the traveller sees in regions remote by the roadside, | |
| Built o’er a box for the poor, or the blessëd image of Mary. | |
| Farther down, on the slope of the hill, was the well with its moss-grown | |
| Bucket, fastened with iron, and near it a trough for the horses. | |
| Shielding the house from storms, on the north, were the barns and the farm-yard. | 35 |
| There stood the broad-wheeled wains and the antique ploughs and the harrows; | |
| There were the folds for the sheep; and there, in his feathered seraglio, | |
| Strutted the lordly turkey, and crowed the cock, with the selfsame | |
| Voice that in ages of old had startled the penitent Peter. | |
| Bursting with hay were the barns, themselves a village. In each one | 40 |
| Far o’er the gable projected a roof of thatch; and a staircase, | |
| Under the sheltering eaves, led up to the odorous corn-loft. | |
| There too the dove-cot stood, with its meek and innocent inmates | |
| Murmuring ever of love; while above in the variant breezes | |
| Numberless noisy weathercocks rattled and sang of mutation. | 45 |
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ON THE ATCHAFALAYA
Water-lilies in myriads rocked on the slight undulations | |
| Made by the passing oars, and, resplendent in beauty, the lotus | |
| Lifted her golden crown above the heads of the boatmen. | |
| Faint was the air with the odorous breath of magnolia blossoms, | |
| And with the heat of noon; and numberless sylvan islands, | 50 |
| Fragrant and thickly embowered with blossoming hedges of roses, | |
| Near to whose shores they glided along, invited to slumber. | |
| Soon by the fairest of these their weary oars were suspended. | |
| Under the boughs of Wachita willows, that grew by the margin, | |
| Safely their boat was moored; and scattered about on the greensward, | 55 |
| Tired with their midnight toil, the weary travellers slumbered. | |
| Over them vast and high extended the cope of a cedar. | |
| Swinging from its great arms, the trumpet-flower and the grapevine | |
| Hung their ladder of ropes aloft like the ladder of Jacob, | |
| On whose pendulous stairs the angels ascending, descending, | 60 |
| Were the swift humming-birds, that flitted from blossom to blossom. | |
| Such was the vision Evangeline saw as she slumbered beneath it. | |
| Filled was her heart with love, and the dawn of an opening heaven | |
| Lighted her soul in sleep with the glory of regions celestial. | |
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| Softly the evening came. The sun from the western horizon | 65 |
| Like a magician extended his golden wand o’er the landscape; | |
| Twinkling vapors arose; and sky and water and forest | |
| Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together. | |
| Hanging between two skies, a cloud with edges of silver, | |
| Floated the boat, with its dripping oars, on the motionless water. | 70 |
| Filled was Evangeline’s heart with inexpressible sweetness. | |
| Touched by the magic spell, the sacred fountains of feeling | |
| Glowed with the light of love, as the skies and waters around her. | |
| Then from a neighboring thicket the mocking-bird, wildest of singers, | |
| Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o’er the water, | 75 |
| Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious music, | |
| That the whole air and the woods and the waves seemed silent to listen. | |
| Plaintive at first were the tones and sad: then, soaring to madness, | |
| Seemed they to follow or guide the revel of frenzied Bacchantes. | |
| Single notes were then heard, in sorrowful, low lamentation; | 80 |
| Till, having gathered them all, he flung them abroad in derision, | |
| As when, after a storm, a gust of wind through the tree-tops | |
| Shakes down the rattling rain in a crystal shower on the branches. | |
| With such a prelude as this, and hearts that throbbed with emotion, | |
| Slowly they entered the Têche, where it flows through the green Opelousas, | 85 |
| And, through the amber air, above the crest of the woodland, | |
| Saw the column of smoke that arose from a neighboring dwelling;— | |
| Sounds of a horn they heard, and the distant lowing of cattle. | |
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THE FINDING OF GABRIEL
Then it came to pass that a pestilence fell on the city, | |
| Presaged by wondrous signs, and mostly by flocks of wild pigeons, | 90 |
| Darkening the sun in their flight, with naught in their craws but an acorn. | |
| And, as the tides of the sea arise in the month of September, | |
| Flooding some silver stream, till it spreads to a lake in the meadow, | |
| So death flooded life, and, o’erflowing its natural margin, | |
| Spread to a brackish lake, the silver stream of existence. | 95 |
| Wealth had no power to bribe, nor beauty to charm, the oppressor; | |
| But all perished alike beneath the scourge of his anger;— | |
| Only, alas! the poor, who had neither friends nor attendants, | |
| Crept away to die in the almshouse, home of the homeless. | |
| Then in the suburbs it stood, in the midst of meadows and woodlands;— | 100 |
| Now the city surrounds it; but still, with its gateway and wicket | |
| Meek, in the midst of splendor, its humble walls seem to echo | |
| Softly the words of the Lord:—“The poor ye always have with you.” | |
| Thither, by night and by day, came the Sister of Mercy. The dying | |
| Looked up into her face, and thought, indeed, to behold there | 105 |
| Gleams of celestial light encircle her fore-head with splendor, | |
| Such as the artist paints o’er the brows of saints and apostles, | |
| Or such as hangs by night o’er a city seen at a distance. | |
| Unto their eyes it seemed the lamps of the city celestial, | |
| Into whose shining gates erelong their spirits would enter. | 110 |
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| Thus, on a Sabbath morn, through the streets, deserted and silent, | |
| Wending her quiet way, she entered the door of the almshouse. | |
| Sweet on the summer air was the odor of flowers in the garden; | |
| And she paused on her way to gather the fairest among them, | |
| That the dying once more might rejoice in their fragrance and beauty. | 115 |
| Then, as she mounted the stairs to the corridors, cooled by the east-wind, | |
| Distant and soft on her ear fell the chimes from the belfry of Christ Church, | |
| While intermingled with these, across the meadows were wafted | |
| Sounds of psalms, that were sung by the Swedes in their church at Wicaco. | |
| Soft as descending wings fell the calm of the hour on her spirit; | 120 |
| Something within her said, “At length thy trials are ended;” | |
| And, with light in her looks, she entered the chambers of sickness. | |
| Noiselessly moved about the assiduous, careful attendants, | |
| Moistening the feverish lip, and the aching brow, and in silence | |
| Closing the sightless eyes of the dead, and concealing their faces, | 125 |
| Where on their pallets they lay, like drifts of snow by the roadside. | |
| Many a languid head, upraised as Evangeline entered, | |
| Turned on its pillow of pain to gaze while she passed, for her presence | |
| Fell on their hearts like a ray of the sun on the walls of a prison. | |
| And, as she looked around, she saw how Death, the consoler, | 130 |
| Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it forever. | |
| Many familiar forms had disappeared in the night-time; | |
| Vacant their places were, or filled already by strangers. | |
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| Suddenly, as if arrested by fear or a feeling of wonder, | |
| Still she stood, with her colorless lips apart, while a shudder | 135 |
| Ran through her frame, and, forgotten, the flowerets dropped from her fingers, | |
| And from her eyes and cheeks the light and bloom of the morning. | |
| Then there escaped from her lips a cry of such terrible anguish, | |
| That the dying heard it, and started up from their pillows. | |
| On the pallet before her was stretched the form of an old man. | 140 |
| Long, and thin, and gray were the locks that shaded his temples; | |
| But, as he lay in the morning light, his face for a moment | |
| Seemed to assume once more the forms of its earlier manhood; | |
| So are wont to be changed the faces of those who are dying. | |
| Hot and red on his lips still burned the flush of the fever, | 145 |
| As if life, like the Hebrew, with blood had besprinkled its portals, | |
| That the Angel of Death might see the sign, and pass over. | |
| Motionless, senseless, dying, he lay, and his spirit exhausted | |
| Seemed to be sinking down through infinite depths in the darkness— | |
| Darkness of slumber and death, forever sinking and sinking. | 150 |
| Then through those realms of shade, in multiplied reverberations, | |
| Heard he that cry of pain, and through the hush that succeeded | |
| Whispered a gentle voice, in accents tender and saint-like, | |
| “Gabriel! O my beloved!” and died away into silence. | |
| Then he beheld, in a dream, once more the home of his childhood; | 155 |
| Green Acadian meadows, with sylvan rivers among them, | |
| Village, and mountain, and woodlands; and walking under their shadow, | |
| As in the days of her youth, Evangeline rose in his vision. | |
| Tears came into his eyes; and as slowly he lifted his eyelids, | |
| Vanished the vision away, but Evangeline knelt by his bedside. | 160 |
| Vainly he strove to whisper her name, for the accents unuttered | |
| Died on his lips, and their motion revealed what his tongue would have spoken. | |
| Vainly he strove to rise; and Evangeline, kneeling beside him, | |
| Kissed his dying lips, and laid his head on her bosom. | |
| Sweet was the light of his eyes; but it suddenly sank into darkness, | 165 |
| As when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind at a casement. | |
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| All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the sorrow, | |
| All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing, | |
| All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of patience! | |
| And, as she pressed once more the lifeless head to her bosom, | 170 |
| Meekly she bowed her own, and murmured, | |
| “Father, I thank thee!” | |
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