II. IT was the month of May. Far down the Beauti ful River, Past the Ohio shore and past the mouth of the Wabash, into the golden stream of the broad and swift Mississippi, 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, Let me essay, O Muse! to follow the wanderer's footsteps; Not through each devious path, each changeful year of existence; But as a traveller follows a streamlet's course through the valley: Far from its margin at times, and seeing the gleam of its water Here and there, in some open space, and at intervals only; Then drawing nearer its banks, through sylvan glooms that conceal it, Though he behold it not, he can hear its contin uous murmur; Happy, at length, if he find the spot where it reaches an outlet. II. IT was the month of May. Far down the Beauti ful River, Past the Ohio shore and past the mouth of the Wabash, into the golden stream of the broad and swift Mississippi, 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. en camped on its borders. 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 negro-cabins 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. They, too, swerved from their course; and, enter ing the Bayou of Plaquemine, Soon were lost in a maze of sluggish and devious waters, Which, like a network of steel, extended in every direction. |