All was silent within; and in vain at the door and the windows Stood she, and listened and looked, till, overcome by emotion, 'Gabriel!' cried she aloud with tremulous voice; but no answer Came from the graves of the dead, nor the gloomier grave of the living. Slowly at length she returned to the tenant less house of her father. Smouldered the fire on the hearth, on the board was the supper untasted, Empty and drear was each room, and haunted with phantoms of terror. Sadly echoed her step on the stair and the floor of her chamber. In the dead of the night she heard the disconsolate rain fall 500 Loud on the withered leaves of the sycamore-tree by the window. Keenly the lightning flashed; and the voice of the echoing thunder Told her that God was in heaven, and governed the world He created! Then she remembered the tale she had heard of the justice of Heaven; Soothed was her troubled soul, and she peacefully slumbered till morning. Piled in confusion lay the household goods of the peasants. All day long between the shore and the ships did the boats ply; All day long the wains came laboring down from the village. Late in the afternoon, when the sun was near to his setting, 520 Echoed far o'er the fields came the roll of Even as pilgrims, who journey afar from So with songs on their lips the Acadian peasants descended Down from the church to the shore, amid their wives and their daughters. Foremost the young men came; and, raising together their voices, Sang with tremulous lips a chant of the Catholic Missions: 'Sacred heart of the Saviour! O inexhaustible fountain! Fill our hearts this day with strength and submission and patience!' 530 Then the old men, as they marched, and the women that stood by the wayside Joined in the sacred psalm, and the birds in the sunshine above them Mingled their notes therewith, like voices of spirits departed. Wives were torn from their husbands, and mothers, too late, saw their children Left on the land, extending their arms, with wildest entreaties. So unto separate ships were Basil and Gabriel carried, While in despair on the shore Evangeline stood with her father. Half the task was not done when the sun went down, and the twilight Deepened and darkened around; and in haste the refluent ocean Fled away from the shore, and left the line of the sand-beach Covered with waifs of the tide, with kelp and the slippery sea-weed. Farther back in the midst of the household goods and the wagons, Like to a gypsy camp, or a leaguer after a battle, 560 Haggard and hollow and wan, and without either thought or emotion, E'en as the face of a clock from which the hands have been taken. Vainly Evangeline strove with words and caresses to cheer him, Vainly offered him food; yet he moved not, he looked not, he spake not, But, with a vacant stare, ever gazed at the flickering fire-light. 'Benedicite!' murmured the priest, in tones of compassion. More he fain would have said, but his heart was full, and his accents Faltered and paused on his lips, as the feet of a child on a threshold, Hushed by the scene he beholds, and the awful presence of sorrow. Silently, therefore, he laid his hand on the head of the maiden, 590 Raising his tearful eyes to the silent stars that above them Moved on their way, unperturbed by the wrongs and sorrows of mortals. Then sat he down at her side, and they wept together in silence. Suddenly rose from the south a light, as in autumn the blood-red And as they turned at length to speak to Leaving behind them the dead on the shore, their silent companion, and the village in ruins. PART THE SECOND I MANY a weary year had passed since the burning of Grand-Pré, When on the falling tide the freighted vessels departed, Bearing a nation, with all its household gods, into exile, Exile without an end, and without an example in story. Far asunder, on separate coasts, the Acadians landed; Scattered were they, like flakes of snow, when the wind from the northeast Strikes aslant through the fogs that darken the Banks of Newfoundland. Friendless, homeless, hopeless, they wandered from city to city, From the cold lakes of the North to sultry Southern savannas, From the bleak shores of the sea to the lands where the Father of Waters 10 Seizes the hills in his hands, and drags them down to the ocean, Deep in their sands to bury the scattered bones of the mammoth. Friends they sought and homes; and many, despairing, heart-broken, Asked of the earth but a grave, and no longer a friend nor a fireside. Written their history stands on tablets of stone in the churchyards. Long among them was seen a maiden who waited and wandered, Lowly and meek in spirit, and patiently suffering all things. Fair was she and young: but, alas! before her extended, Dreary and vast and silent, the desert of life, with its pathway Marked by the graves of those who had sorrowed and suffered before her, 20 Passions long extinguished, and hopes long dead and abandoned, As the emigrant's way o'er the Western desert is marked by Camp-fires long consumed, and bones that bleach in the sunshine. Something there was in her life incomplete, imperfect, unfinished; As if a morning of June, with all its music and sunshine, Suddenly paused in the sky, and, fading, slowly descended Sat by some nameless grave, and thought that perhaps in its bosom He was already at rest, and she longed to slumber beside him. Sometimes a rumor, a hearsay, an inarticulate whisper, Came with its airy hand to point and beckon her forward. Sometimes she spake with those who had seen her beloved and known him, But it was long ago, in some far-off place or forgotten. 'Gabriel Lajeunesse !' they said; 'Oh yes! we have seen him. He was with Basil the blacksmith, and both have gone to the prairies; Coureurs-des-Bois are they, and famous hunters and trappers.' 40 'Gabriel Lajeunesse !' said others; 'Oh yes! we have seen him. He is a Voyageur in the lowlands of Louisiana.' Then would they say, 'Dear child! why dream and wait for him longer? Are there not other youths as fair as Gabriel? others Who have hearts as tender and true, and spirits as loyal ? Here is Baptiste Leblanc, the notary's son, who has loved thee Many a tedious year; come, give him thy hand and be happy! Thou art too fair to be left to braid St. Catherine's tresses.' ' Then would Evangeline answer, serenely but sadly, 'I cannot ! 50 Whither my heart has gone, there follows my hand, and not elsewhere. For when the heart goes before, like a lamp, and illumines the pathway, Many things are made clear, that else lie hidden in darkness.' 1 There is a common expression in French, 'coiffer Sainte Catherine,' meaning to be an old maid. Therefore accomplish thy labor of love, till the heart is made godlike, Purified, strengthened, perfected, and rendered more worthy of heaven!' Cheered by the good man's words, Evangeline labored and waited. Still in her heart she heard the funeral dirge of the ocean, But with its sound there was mingled a voice that whispered, Despair not!' Thus did that poor soul wander in want and cheerless discomfort, Bleeding, barefooted, over the shards and thorns of existence. Let me essay, O Muse! to follow the wan derer's footsteps; Floated a cumbrous boat, that was rowed by Acadian boatmen. It was a band of exiles: a raft, as it were, from the shipwrecked Nation, scattered along the coast, now floating together, Bound by the bonds of a common belief and a common misfortune; Men and women and children, who, guided by hope or by hearsay, Sought for their kith and their kin among the few-acred farmers On the Acadian coast, and the prairies of fair Opelousas. With them Evangeline went, and her guide, the Father Felician. Onward o'er sunken sands, through a wilderness sombre with forests, Day after day they glided adown the turbulent river; Night after night, by their blazing fires, encamped on its borders. 90 Now through rushing chutes, among green islands, where plumelike Cotton-trees nodded their shadowy crests, they swept with the current, Then emerged into broad lagoons, where silvery sand-bars Lay in the stream, and along the wimpling waves of their margin, Shining with snow white plumes, large flocks of pelicans waded. Level the landscape grew, and along the shores of the river, Shaded by china-trees, in the midst of luxuriant gardens, Stood the houses of planters, with negrocabins and dove-cots. They were approaching the region where reigns perpetual summer, Where through the Golden Coast, and groves of orange and citron, Sweeps with majestic curve the river away to the eastward. 100 They, too, swerved from their course; and entering the Bayou of Plaque |