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(From Evangeline)
SOFTLY the evening came. The sun from the western horizon | |
| 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, | 5 |
| Floated the boat, with its dripping oars, on the motionless water. | |
| 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, | 10 |
| Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o’er the water, | |
| 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. | 15 |
| Single notes were then heard, in sorrowful, low lamentation; | |
| 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, | 20 |
| Slowly they entered the Têche, where it flows through the green Opelousas, | |
| 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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| Near to the bank of the river, o’ershadowed by oaks, from whose branches | 25 |
| Garlands of Spanish moss and of mystic mistletoe flaunted, | |
| Such as the Druids cut down with golden hatchets at Yule-tide, | |
| Stood, secluded and still, the house of the herdsman. A garden | |
| Girded it round about with a belt of luxuriant blossoms, | |
| Filling the air with fragrance. The house itself was of timbers | 30 |
| Hewn from the cypress-tree, and carefully fitted together. | |
| Large and low was the roof; and on slender columns supported, | |
| Rose-wreathed, vine-encircled, a broad and spacious veranda, | |
| Haunt of the humming-bird and the bee, extended around it. | |
| At each end of the house, amid the flowers of the garden, | 35 |
| Stationed the dove-cots were, as love’s perpetual symbol, | |
| Scenes of endless wooing, and endless contentions of rivals. | |
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| Silence reigned o’er the place. The line of shadow and sunshine | |
| Ran near the tops of the trees; but the house itself was in shadow, | |
| And from its chimney-top, ascending and slowly expanding | 40 |
| Into the evening air, a thin blue column of smoke rose. | |
| In the rear of the house, from the garden gate, ran a pathway | |
| Through the great groves of oak to the skirts of the limitless prairie, | |
| Into whose sea of flowers the sun was slowly descending. | |
| Full in his track of light, like ships with shadowy canvas | 45 |
| Hanging loose from their spars in a motionless calm in the tropics, | |
| Stood a cluster of trees, with tangled cordage of grapevines. | |
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