INTRODUCTION

THIS is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,

Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,

Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,

Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.

Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean

Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it

Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman?

Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers, —

Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,

Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?

Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed!

Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October

Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o’er the ocean.

Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pré.

Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient,

Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman’s devotion,

List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest;

List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy.

I.

IN the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,

Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pré

Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward,

Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without number.

Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with labor incessant,

Shut out the turbulent tides; but at stated seasons the flood-gates

Opened, and welcomed the sea to wander at will o’er the meadows.

West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards and cornfields

Spreading afar and unfenced o’er the plain; and away to the northward

Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the mountains

Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty Atlantic

Looked on the happy valley, but ne’er from their station descended.

There, in the midst of its farms, reposed the Acadian village.

Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and of chestnut,

Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign of the Henries.

Thatched were the roofs, with dormer-windows; and gables projecting

Over the basement below protected and shaded the door-way.

There in the tranquil evenings of summer, when brightly the sunset

Lighted the village street, and gilded the vanes on the chimneys,

Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in kirtles

Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the golden

Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles within doors

Mingled their sound with the whir of the wheels and the songs of the maidens.

Solemnly down the street came the parish priest, and the children

Paused in their play to kiss the hand he extended to bless them.

Reverend walked he among them; and up rose matrons and maidens,

Hailing his slow approach with words of affectionate welcome.

Then came the laborers home from the field, and serenely the sun sank

Down to his rest, and twilight prevailed. Anon from the belfry

Softly the Angelus sounded, and over the roofs of the village

Columns of pale blue smoke, like clouds of incense ascending,

Rose from a hundred hearths, the homes of peace and contentment.

Thus dwelt together in love these simple Acadian farmers, —

Dwelt in the love of God and of man. Alike were they free from

Fear, that reigns with the tyrant, and envy, the vice of republics.

Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their windows;

But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts of the owners;

There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in abundance.

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;

Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is covered with snow-flakes;

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!

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

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.

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.

Firmly builded with rafters of oak, the house of the farmer

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 overhung by a penthouse,

Such as the traveller sees in regions remote by the roadside,

Built o’er a box for the poor, or the blessed 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,

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

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.

Thus, at peace with God and the world, the farmer of Grand-Pré

Lived on his sunny farm, and Evangeline governed his household.

Many a youth, as he knelt in the church and opened his missal,

Fixed his eyes upon her, as the saint of his deepest devotion;

Happy was he who might touch her hand or the hem of her garment!

Many a suitor came to her door, by the darkness befriended,

And, as he knocked and waited to hear the sound of her footsteps,

Knew not which beat the louder, his heart or the knocker of iron;

Or at the joyous feast of the Patron Saint of the village,

Bolder grew, and pressed her hand in the dance as he whispered

Hurried words of love, that seemed a part of the music.

But, among all who came, young Gabriel only was welcome;

Gabriel Lajeunesse, the son of Basil the blacksmith,

Who was a mighty man in the village, and honored of all men;

For, since the birth of time, throughout all ages and nations,

Has the craft of the smith been held in repute by the people.

Basil was Benedict’s friend. Their children from earliest childhood

Grew up together as brother and sister; and Father Felician,

Priest and pedagogue both in the village, had taught them their letters

Out of the selfsame book, with the hymns of the church and the plain-song.

But when the hymn was sung, and the daily lesson completed,

Swiftly they hurried away to the forge of Basil the blacksmith.

There at the door they stood, with wondering eyes to behold him

Take in his leathern lap the hoof of the horse as a plaything,

Nailing the shoe in its place; while near him the tire of the cart-wheel

Lay like a fiery snake, coiled round in a circle of cinders.

Oft on autumnal eves, when without in the gathering darkness

Bursting with light seemed the smithy, through every cranny and crevice,

Warm by the forge within they watched the laboring bellows,

And as its panting ceased, and the sparks expired in the ashes,

Merrily laughed, and said they were nuns going into the chapel.

Oft on sledges in winter, as swift as the swoop of the eagle,

Down the hillside bounding, they glided away o’er the meadow.

Oft in the barns they climbed to the populous nests on the rafters,

Seeking with eager eyes that wondrous stone, which the swallow

Brings from the shore of the sea to restore the sight of its fledglings;

Lucky was he who found that stone in the nest of the swallow!

Thus passed a few swift years, and they no longer were children.

He was a valiant youth, and his face, like the face of the morning,

Gladdened the earth with its light, and ripened through into action.

She was a woman now, with the heart and hopes of a woman.

“Sunshine of Saint Eulalie” was she called; for that was the sunshine

Which, as the farmers believed, would load their orchards with apples;

She, too, would bring to her husband’s house delight and abundance,

Filling it full of love and the ruddy faces of children.

II.

NOW had the season returned, when the nights grow colder and longer,

And the retreating sun the sign of the Scorpion enters.

Birds of passage sailed through the leaden air, from the ice-bound,

Desolate northern bays to the shores of tropical islands.

Harvests were gathered in; and wild with the winds of September

Wrestled the trees of the forest, as Jacob of old with the angel.

All the signs foretold a winter long and inclement.

Bees, with prophetic instinct of want, had hoarded their honey

Till the hives overflowed; and the Indian hunters asserted

Cold would the winter be, for thick was the fur of the foxes.

Such was the advent of autumn. Then followed that beautiful season,

Called by the pious Acadian peasants the Summer of All-Saints!

Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape

Lay as if new-created in all the freshness of childhood.

Peace seemed to reign upon earth, and the restless heart of the ocean

Was for a moment consoled. All sounds were in harmony blended.

Voices of children at play, the crowing of cocks in the farm-yards,

Whir of wings in the drowsy air, and the cooing of pigeons,

All were subdued and low as the murmurs of love, and the great sun

Looked with the eye of love through the golden vapors around him;

While arrayed in its robes of russet and scarlet and yellow,

Bright with the sheen of the dew, each glittering tree of the forest

Flashed like the plane-tree the Persian adorned with mantles and jewels.

Now recommenced the reign of rest and affection and stillness.

Day with its burden and heat had departed, and twilight descending

Brought back the evening star to the sky, and the herds to the homestead.

Pawing the ground they came, and resting their necks on each other,

And with their nostrils distended inhaling the freshness of evening.

Foremost, bearing the bell, Evangeline’s beautiful heifer,

Proud of her snow-white hide, and the ribbon that waved from her collar,

Quietly paced and slow, as if conscious of human affection.

Then came the shepherd back with his bleating flocks from the seaside,

Where was their favorite pasture. Behind them followed the watch-dog,

Patient, full of importance, and grand in the pride of his instinct,

Walking from side to side with a lordly air, and superbly

Waving his bushy tail, and urging forward the stragglers;

Regent of flocks was he when the shepherd slept; their protector,

When from the forest at night, through the starry silence, the wolves howled.

Late, with the rising moon, returned the wains from the marshes,

Laden with briny hay, that filled the air with its odor.

Cheerily neighed the steeds, with dew on their manes and their fetlocks,

While aloft on their shoulders the wooden and ponderous saddles,

Painted with brilliant dyes, and adorned with tassels of crimson,

Nodded in bright array, like hollyhocks heavy with blossoms.

Patiently stood the cows meanwhile, and yielded their udders

Unto the milkmaid’s hand; whilst loud and in regular cadence

Into the sounding pails the foaming streamlets descended.

Lowing of cattle and peals of laughter were heard in the farm-yard,

Echoed back by the barns. Anon they sank into stillness;

Heavily closed, with a jarring sound, the valves of the barn-doors,

Rattled the wooden bars, and all for a season was silent.

In-doors, warm by the wide-mouthed fireplace, idly the farmer

Sat in his elbow-chair; and watched how the flames and the smoke-wreaths

Struggled together like foe in a burning city. Behind him,

Nodding and mocking along the wall, with gestures fantastic,

Darted his own huge shadow, and vanished away into darkness.

Faces, clumsily carved in oak, on the back of his arm-chair

Laughed in the flickering light, and the pewter plates on the dresser

Caught and reflected the flame, as shields of armies the sunshine.

Fragments of song the old man sang, and carols of Christmas,

Such as at home, in the olden time, his fathers before him

Sang in their Norman orchards and bright Burgundian vineyards.

Close at her father’s side was the gentle Evangeline seated,

Spinning flax for the loom, that stood in the corner behind her.

Silent awhile were its treadles, at rest was its diligent shuttle,

While the monotonous drone of the wheel, like the drone of a bagpipe,

Followed the old man’s song, and united the fragments together.

As in a church, when the chant of the choir at intervals ceases,

Footfalls are heard in the aisles, or words of the priest at the altar,

So, in each pause of the song, with measured motion the clock clicked.

Thus as they sat, there were footsteps heard, and, suddenly lifted,

Sounded the wooden latch, and the door swung back on its hinges.

Benedict knew by the hob-nailed shoes it was Basil the blacksmith,

And by her beating heart Evangeline knew who was with him.

“Welcome!” the farmer exclaimed, as their footsteps paused on the threshold,

“Welcome, Basil, my friend! Come, take thy place on the settle

Close by the chimney-side, which is always empty without thee;

Take from the shelf overhead thy pipe and the box of tobacco;

Never so much thyself art thou as when through the curling

Smoke of the pipe or the forge thy friendly and jovial face gleams

Round and red as the harvest moon through the mist of the marshes.”

Then, with a smile of content, thus answered Basil the blacksmith,

Taking with easy air the accustomed seat by the fireside: —

“Benedict Bellefontaine, thou hast ever thy jest and thy ballad!

Ever in cheerfullest mood art thou, when others are filled with

Gloomy forebodings of ill, and see only ruin before them.

Happy art thou, as if every day thou hadst picked up a horseshoe.”

Pausing a moment, to take the pipe that Evangeline brought him,

And with a coal from the embers had lighted, he slowly continued: —

“Four days now are passed since the English ships at their anchors

Ride in the Gaspereau’s mouth, with their cannon pointed against us,

What their design may be is unknown; but all are commanded

On the morrow to meet in the church, where his Majesty’s mandate

Will be proclaimed as law in the land. Alas! in the mean time

Many surmises of evil alarm the hearts of the people.”

Then made answer the farmer: — “Perhaps some friendlier purpose

Brings these ships to our shores. Perhaps the harvests in England

By untimely rains or untimelier heat have been blighted,

And from our bursting barns they would feed their cattle and children.”

“Not so thinketh the folk in the village,” said, warmly, the blacksmith,

Shaking his head, as in doubt; then, heaving a sigh, he continued: —

“Louisburg is not forgotten, nor Beau Sejour, nor Port Royal.

Many already have fled to the forest, and lurk on its outskirts,

Waiting with anxious hearts the dubious fate of to-morrow.

Arms have been taken from us, and warlike weapons of all kinds;

Nothing is left but the blacksmith’s sledge and the scythe of the mower.”

Then with a pleasant smile made answer the jovial farmer: —

“Safer are we unarmed, in the midst of our flocks and our cornfields,

Safer within these peaceful dikes, besieged by the ocean,

Than our fathers in forts, besieged by the enemy’s cannon.

Fear no evil, my friend, and to-night may no shadow of sorrow

Fall on this house and hearth; for this is the night of the contract.

Built are the house and the barn. The merry lads of the village

Strongly have built them and well; and, breaking the glebe round about them,

Filled the barn with hay, and the house with food for a twelvemonth.

Rene Leblanc will be here anon, with his papers and inkhorn.

Shall we not then be glad, and rejoice in the joy of our children?”

As apart by the window she stood, with her hand in her lover’s,

Blushing Evangeline heard the words that her father had spoken,

And, as they died on his lips, the worthy notary entered.

III.

BENT like a laboring oar, that toils in the surf of the ocean,

Bent, but not broken, by age was the form of the notary public;

Shocks of yellow hair, like the silken floss of the maize, hung

Over his shoulders; his forehead was high; and glasses with horn bows

Sat astride on his nose, with a look of wisdom supernal.

Father of twenty children was he, and more than a hundred

Children’s children rode on his knee, and heard his great watch tick.

Four long years in the times of the war had he languished a captive,

Suffering much in an old French fort as the friend of the English.

Now, though warier grown, without all guile or suspicion,

Ripe in wisdom was he, but patient, and simple, and childlike.

He was beloved by all, and most of all by the children;

For he told them tales of the Loup-garou in the forest,

And of the goblin that came in the night to water the horses,

And of the white Letiche, the ghost of a child who unchristened

Died, and was doomed to haunt unseen the chambers of children;

And how on Christmas eve the oxen talked in the stable,

And how the fever was cured by a spider shut up in a nutshell,

And of the marvellous powers of four-leaved clover and horsehoes,

With whatsoever else was writ in the lore of the village.

Then up rose from his seat by the fireside Basil the blacksmith,

Knocked from his pipe the ashes, and slowly extending his right hand,

“Father Leblanc,” he exclaimed, “thou hast heard the talk in the village,

And, perchance, canst tell us some news of these ships and their errand.”

Then with modest demeanor made answer the notary public: —

“Gossip enough have I heard, in sooth, yet am never the wiser;

And what their errand may be I know not better than others.

Yet am I not of those who imagine some evil intention

Brings them here, for we are at peace; and why then molest us?”

“God’s name!” shouted the hasty and somewhat irascible blacksmith;

“Must we in all things look for the how, and the why, and the wherefore?

Daily injustice is done, and might is the right of the strongest!”

But, without heeding his warmth, continued the notary public: —

“Man is unjust, but God is just; and finally justice

Triumphs; and well I remember a story, that often consoled me,

When as a captive I lay in the old French fort at Port Royal.”

This was the old man’s favorite tale, and he loved to repeat it

When his neighbors complained that any injustice was done them.

“Once in an ancient city, whose name I no longer remember,

Raised aloft on a column, a brazen statue of Justice

Stood in the public square, upholding the scales in its left hand,

And in its right a sword, as an emblem that justice presided

Over the laws of the land, and the hearts and homes of the people.

Even the birds had built their nests in the scales of the balance,

Having no fear of the sword that flashed in the sunshine above them.

But in the course of time the laws of the land were corrupted;

Might took the place of right, and the weak were oppressed, and the mighty

Ruled with an iron rod. Then it chanced in a nobleman’s palace

That a necklace of pearls was lost, and erelong a suspicion

Fell on an orphan girl who lived as maid in the household.

She, after form of trial condemned to die on the scaffold,

Patiently met her doom at the foot of the statue of Justice.

As to her Father in heaven her innocent spirit ascended,

Lo! o’er the city a tempest rose; and the bolts of the thunder

Smote the statue of bronze, and hurled in wrath from its left hand

Down on the pavement below the clattering scales of the balance,

And in the hollow thereof was found the nest of a magpie,

Into whose clay-built walls the necklace of pearls was inwoven.”

Silenced, but not convinced, when the story was ended, the blacksmith

Stood like a man who fain would speak, but findeth no language;

All his thoughts were congealed into lines on his face, as the vapors

Freeze in fantastic shapes on the window-panes in the winter.

Then Evangeline lighted the brazen lamp on the table,

Filled, till it overflowed, the pewter tankard with home-brewed

Nut-brown ale, that was famed for its strength in the village of Grand-Pré;

While from his pocket the notary drew his papers and inkhorn,

Wrote with a steady hand the date and the age of the parties,

Naming the dower of the bride in flocks of sheep and in cattle.

Orderly all things proceeded, and duly and well were completed,

And the great seal of the law was set like a sun on the margin.

Then from his leathern pouch the farmer threw on the table

Three times the old man’s fee in solid pieces of silver;

And the notary rising, and blessing the bride and the bridegroom,

Lifted aloft the tankard of ale and drank to their welfare.

Wiping the foam from his lip, he solemnly bowed and departed,

While in silence the others sat and mused by the fireside,

Till Evangeline brought the draught-board out of its corner.

Soon was the game begun. In friendly contention the old men

Laughed at each lucky hit, or unsuccessful manoeuver,

Laughed when a man was crowned, or a breach was made in the king-row.

Meanwhile apart, in the twilight gloom of a window’s embrasure,

Sat the lovers, and whispered together, beholding the moon rise

Over the pallid sea and the silvery mist of the meadows.

Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,

Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.

Thus passed the evening away. Anon the bell from the belfry

Rang out the hour of nine, the village curfew, and straightway

Rose the guests and departed; and silence reigned in the household.

Many a farewell word and sweet good night on the door-step

Lingered long in Evangeline’s heart, and filled it with gladness.

Carefully then were covered the embers that glowed on the hearth-stone;

And on the oaken stairs resounded the tread of the farmer.

Soon with a soundless step the foot of Evangeline followed.

Up the staircase moved a luminous space in the darkness,

Lighted less by the lamp than the shining face of the maiden.

Silent she passed the hall, and entered the door of her chamber.

Simple that chamber was, with its curtains of white, and its clothes-press

Ample and high, on whose spacious shelves were carefully folded

Linen and woollen stuffs, by the hand of Evangeline woven.

This was the precious dower she would bring to her husband in marriage,

Better than flocks and herds, being proofs of her skill as a housewife.

Soon she extinguished her lamp, for the mellow and radiant moonlight

Streamed through the windows, and lighted the room, till the heart of the maiden

Swelled and obeyed its power, like the tremulous tides of the ocean.

Ah! she was fair, exceeding fair to behold, as she stood with

Naked snow-white feet on the gleaming floor of her chamber!

Little she dreamed that below, among the trees of the orchard,

Waited her lover and watched for the gleam of her lamp and her shadow.

Yet were her thoughts of him, and at times a feeling of sadness

Passed o’er her soul, as the sailing shade of clouds in the moonlight

Flitted across the floor and darkened the room for a moment.

And, as she gazed from the window, she saw serenely the moon pass

Forth from the folds of a cloud, and one star follow her footsteps,

As out of Abraham’s tent young Ishmael wandered with Hagar!

IV.

PLEASANTLY rose next morn the sun on the village of Grand-Pré.

Pleasantly gleamed in the soft, sweet air the Basin of Minas,

Where the ships, with their wavering shadows, were riding at anchor.

Life had long been astir in the village, and clamorous labor

Knocked with its hundred hands at the golden gates of the morning.

Now from the country around, from the farms and neighboring hamlets,

Came in their holiday dresses the blithe Acadian peasants.

Many a glad good morrow and jocund laugh from the young folk

Made the bright air brighter, as up from the numerous meadows,

Where no path could be seen but the track of wheels in the greensward,

Group after group appeared, and joined, or passed on the highway.

Long ere noon, in the village all sounds of labor were silenced.

Thronged were the streets with people; and noisy groups at the house-doors

Sat in the cheerful sun, and rejoiced and gossiped together,

Every house was an inn, where all were welcomed and feasted;

For with this simple people, who lived like brothers together,

All things were held in common, and what one had was another’s.

Yet under Benedict’s roof hospitality seemed more abundant:

For Evangeline stood among the guests of her father;

Bright was her face with smiles, and words of welcome and gladness

Fell from her beautiful lips, and blessed the cup as she gave it.

Under the open sky, in the odorous air of the orchard,

Bending with golden fruit, was spread the feast of betrothal.

There in the shade of the porch were the priest and the notary seated;

There good Benedict sat, and sturdy Basil the blacksmith.

Not far withdrawn from these, by the cider-press and the beehives,

Michael the fiddler was placed, with the gayest of hearts and of waistcoats.

Shadow and light from the leaves alternately played on his snow-white

Hair, as it waved in the wind; and the jolly face of the fiddler

Glowed like a living coal when the ashes are blown from the embers.

Gayly the old man sang to the vibrant sound of his fiddle,

Tous les Bourgeois de Chartres, and Le Carillon de Dunkerque,

And anon with his wooden shoes beat time to the music.

Merrily, merrily whirled the wheels of the dizzying dances

Under the orchard-trees and down the path to the meadows;

Old folk and young together, and children mingled among them.

Fairest of all the maids was Evangeline, Benedict’s daughter!

Noblest of all the youths was Gabriel, son of the blacksmith!

So passed the morning away. And lo! with a summons sonorous

Sounded the bell from its tower, and over the meadows a drum beat.

Thronged erelong was the church with men. Without, in the churchyard,

Waited the women. They stood by the graves, and hung on the headstones

Garlands of autumn-leaves and evergreens fresh from the forest.

Then came the guard from the ships, and marching proudly among them

Entered the sacred portal. With loud and dissonant clangor

Echoed the sound of their brazen drums from ceiling and casement, —

Echoed a moment only, and slowly the ponderous portal

Closed, and in silence the crowd awaited the will of the soldiers.

Then uprose their commander, and spake from the steps of the altar,

Holding aloft in his hands, with its seals, the royal commission.

“You are convened this day,” he said, “by his Majesty’s orders.

Clement and kind has he been; but how you have answered his kindness,

Let your own hearts reply! To my natural make and my temper

Painful the task is I do, which to you I know must be grievous.

Yet must I bow and obey, and deliver the will of our monarch;

Namely, that all your lands, and dwellings, and cattle of all kinds

Forfeited be to the crown; and that you yourselves from this province

Be transported to other lands. God grant you may dwell there

Ever as faithful subjects, a happy and peaceable people!

Prisoners now I declare you; for such is his Majesty’s pleasure!”

As, when the air is serene in the sultry solstice of summer,

Suddenly gathers a storm, and the deadly sling of the hailstones

Beats down the farmer’s corn in the field and shatters his windows,

Hiding the sun, and strewing the ground with thatch from the house-roofs,

Bellowing fly the herds, and seek to break their enclosures;

So on the hearts of the people descended the words of the speaker.

Silent a moment they stood in speechless wonder, and then rose

Louder and ever louder a wail of sorrow and anger,

And, by one impulse moved, they madly rushed to the door-way.

Vain was the hope of escape; and cries and fierce imprecations

Rang through the house of prayer; and high o’er the heads of the others

Rose, with his arms uplifted, the figure of Basil the blacksmith,

As, on a stormy sea, a spar is tossed by the billows.

Flushed was his face and distorted with passion; and wildly he shouted, —

“Down with the tyrants of England! we never have sworn them allegiance!

Death to these foreign soldiers, who seize on our homes and our harvests!”

More he fain would have said, but the merciless hand of a soldier

Smote him upon the mouth, and dragged him down to the pavement.

In the midst of the strife and tumult of angry contention,

Lo! the door of the chancel opened, and Father Felician

Entered, with serious mien, and ascended the steps of the altar.

Raising his reverend hand, with a gesture he awed into silence

All that clamorous throng; and thus he spake to his people;

Deep were his tones and solemn; in accents measured and mournful

Spake he, as, after the tocsin’s alarum, distinctly the clock strikes.

“What is this that ye do, my children? what madness has seized you?

Forty years of my life have I labored among you, and taught you,

Not in word alone, but in deed, to love one another!

Is this the fruit of my toils, of my vigils and prayers and privations?

Have you so soon forgotten all lessons of love and forgiveness?

This is the house of the Prince of Peace, and would you profane it

Thus with violent deeds and hearts overflowing with hatred?

Lo! where the crucified Christ from his cross is gazing upon you!

See! in those sorrowful eyes what meekness and holy compassion!

Hark! how those lips still repeat the prayer, ‘O Father, forgive them!’

Let us repeat that prayer in the hour when the wicked assail us,

Let us repeat it now, and say, ‘O Father, forgive them!’”

Few were his words of rebuke, but deep in the hearts of his people

Sank they, and sobs of contrition succeeded the passionate outbreak,

And they repeated his prayer, and said, “O Father, forgive them!”

Then came the evening service. The tapers gleamed from the altar.

Fervent and deep was the voice of the priest, and the people responded,

Not with their lips alone, but their hearts; and the Ave Maria

Sang they, and fell on their knees, and their souls, with devotion translated,

Rose on the ardor of prayer, like Elijah ascending to heaven.

Meanwhile had spread in the village the tidings of ill, and on all sides

Wandered, wailing, from house to house the women and children.

Long at her father’s door Evangeline stood, with her right hand

Shielding her eyes from the level rays of the sun, that, descending,

Lighted the village street with mysterious splendor, and roofed each

Peasant’s cottage with golden thatch, and emblazoned its windows.

Long within had been spread the snow-white cloth on the table;

There stood the wheaten loaf, and the honey fragrant with wild-flowers;

There stood the tankard of ale, and the cheese fresh brought from the dairy,

And, at the head of the board, the great arm-chair of the farmer.

Thus did Evangeline wait at her father’s door, as the sunset

Threw the long shadows of trees o’er the broad ambrosial meadows.

Ah! on her spirit within a deeper shadow had fallen,

And from the fields of her soul a fragrance celestial ascended, —

Charity, meekness, love, and hope, and forgiveness, and patience!

Then, all-forgetful of self, she wandered into the village,

Cheering with looks and words the disconsolate hearts of the women,

As o’er the darkening fields with lingering steps they departed,

Urged by their household cares, and the weary feet of their children.

Down sank the great red sun, and in golden, glimmering vapors

Veiled the light of his face, like the Prophet descending from Sinai.

Sweetly over the village the bell of the Angelus sounded.

Meanwhile, amid the gloom, by the church Evangeline lingered.

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 tenantless house of her father.

Smouldered the fire on the hearth, on the board stood 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 whispering rain fall

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.

V.

FOUR times the sun had risen and set; and now on the fifth day

Cheerily called the cock to the sleeping maids of the farm-house.

Soon o’er the yellow fields, in silent and mournful procession,

Came from the neighboring hamlets and farms the Acadian women,

Driving in ponderous wains their household goods to the sea-shore,

Pausing and looking back to gaze once more on their dwellings,

Ere they were shut from sight by the winding road and the woodland.

Close at their sides their children ran, and urged on the oxen,

While in their little hands they clasped some fragments of playthings.

Thus to the Gaspereau’s mouth they hurried; and there on the sea-beach

Piled in confusion lay the household goods of the peasants.

All day long between theshore 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,

Echoed far o’er the fields came the roll of drums from the churchyard.

Thither the women and children thronged. On a sudden the church-doors

Opened, and forth came the guard, and marching in gloomy procession

Followed the long-imprisoned, but patient, Acadian farmers.

Even as pilgrims, who journey afar from their homes and their country,

Sing as they go, and in singing forget they are weary and wayworn,

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 they 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!”

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.

Half-way down to the shore Evangeline waited in silence,

Not overcome with grief, but strong in the hour of affliction, —

Calmly and sadly she waited, until the procession approached her,

And she beheld the face of Gabriel pale with emotion.

Tears then filled her eyes, and, eagerly running to meet him,

Clasped she his hands, and laid her head on his shoulder and whispered, —

“Gabriel! be of good cheer! for if we love one another,

Nothing, in truth, can harm us, whatever mischances may happen!”

Smiling she spake these words; then suddenly paused, for her father

Saw she slowly advancing. Alas! how changed was his aspect!

Gone was the glow from his cheek, and the fire from his eye, and his footstep

Heavier seemed with the weight of the heavy heart in his bosom.

But with a smile and a sigh, she clasped his neck and embraced him,

Speaking words of endearment where words of comfort availed not.

Thus to the Gaspereau’s mouth moved on that mournful procession.

There disorder prevailed, and the tumult and stir of embarking.

Busily plied the freighted boats; and in the confusion

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,

All escape cut off by the sea, and the sentinels near them,

Lay encamped for the night the houseless Acadian farmers.

Back to its nethermost caves retreated the bellowing ocean,

Dragging adown the beach the rattling pebbles, and leaving

Inland and far up the shore the stranded boats of the sailors.

Then, as the night descended, the herds returned from their pastures;

Sweet was the moist still air with the odor of milk from their udders;

Lowing they waited, and long, at the well-known bars of the farm-yard, —

Waited and looked in vain for the voice and the hand of the milkmaid.

Silence reigned in the streets; from the church no Angelus sounded,

Rose no smoke from the roofs, and gleamed no lights from the windows.

But on the shores meanwhile the evening fires had been kindled,

Built of the drift-wood thrown on the sands from wrecks in the tempest.

Round them shapes of gloom and sorrowful faces were gathered,

Voices of women were heard, and of men, and the crying of children.

Onward from fire to fire, as from hearth to hearth in his parish,

Wandered the faithful priest, consoling and blessing and cheering,

Like unto shipwrecked Paul on Melita’s desolate sea-shore.

Thus he approached the place where Evangeline sat with her father,

And in the flickering light beheld the face of the old man,

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,

Raising his eyes full of tears 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

Moon climbs the crystal walls of heaven, and o’er the horizon

Titan-like stretches its hundred hands upon mountain and meadow,

Seizing the rocks and the rivers, and piling huge shadows together.

Broader and ever broader it gleamed on the roofs of the village,

Gleamed on the sky and the sea, and the ships that lay in the roadstead.

Columns of shining smoke uprose, and flashes of flame were

Thrust through their folds and withdrawn, like the quivering hands of a martyr.

Then as the wind seized the gleeds and the burning thatch, and, uplifting,

Whirled them aloft through the air, at once from a hundred house-tops

Started the sheeted smoke with flashes of flame intermingled.

These things beheld in dismay the crowd on the shore and on shipboard.

Speechless at first they stood, then cried aloud in their anguish,

“We shall behold no more our homes in the village of Grand-Pré!”

Loud on a sudden the cocks began to crow in the farm-yards,

Thinking the day had dawned; and anon the lowing of cattle

Came on the evening breeze, by the barking of dogs interrupted.

Then rose a sound of dread, such as startles the sleeping encampments

Far in the western prairies or forests that skirt the Nebraska,

When the wild horses affrighted sweep by with the speed of the whirlwind,

Or the loud bellowing herds of buffaloes rush to the river.

Such was the sound that arose on the night, as the herds and the horses

Broke through their folds and fences, and madly rushed o’er the meadows.

Overwhelmed with the sight, yet speechless, the priest and the maiden

Gazed on the scene of terror that reddened and widened before them;

And as they turned at length to speak to their silent companion,

Lo! from his seat he had fallen, and stretched abroad on the sea-shore

Motionless lay his form, from which the soul had departed.

Slowly the priest uplifted the lifeless head, and the maiden

Knelt at her father’s side, and wailed aloud in her terror.

Then in a swoon she sank, and lay with her head on his bosom.

Through the long night she lay in deep, oblivious slumber;

And when she woke from the trance, she beheld a multitude near her.

Faces of friends she beheld, that were mournfully gazing upon her,

Pallid, with tearful eyes, and looks of saddest compassion.

Still the blaze of the burning village illumined the landscape,

Reddened the sky overhead, and gleamed on the faces around her,

And like the day of doom it seemed to her wavering senses.

Then a familiar voice she heard, as it said to the people, —

“Let us bury him here by the sea. When a happier season

Brings us again to our homes from the unknown land of our exile,

Then shall his sacred dust be piously laid in the churchyard.”

Such were the words of the priest. And there in haste by the seaside,

Having the glare of the burning village for funeral torches,

But without bell or book, they buried the farmer of Grand-Pré.

And as the voice of the priest repeated the service of sorrow,

Lo! with a mournful sound, like the voice of a vast congregation,

Solemnly answered the sea, and mingled its roar with the dirges.

’Twas the returning tide, that afar from the waste of the ocean,

With the first dawn of the day, came heaving and hurrying landward.

Then recommenced once more the stir and noise of embarking;

And with the ebb of the tide the ships sailed out of the harbor,

Leaving behind them the dead on the shore, 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

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,

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

Into the east again, from whence it late had arisen.

Sometimes she lingered in towns, till, urged by the fever within her,

Urged by a restless longing, the hunger and thirst of the spirit,

She would commence again her endless search and endeavor;

Sometimes in churchyards strayed, and gazed on the crosses and tombstones,

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; “O 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,”

“Gabriel Lajeunesse!” said others; “O 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!

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.”

Thereupon the priest, her friend and father-confessor,

Said, with a smile, “O daughter! thy God thus speaketh within thee!

Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was wasted;

If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters, returning

Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full of refreshment;

That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the fountain.

Patience; accomplish thy labor; accomplish thy work of affection!

Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance is godlike.

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 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 continuous murmur;

Happy, at length, if he find the spot where it reaches an outlet.

II.

IT was the month of May. Far down the Beautiful 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 somber with forests,

Day after day they glided adown the turbulent river;

Night after night, by their blazing fires, encamped 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, entering 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.

Over their heads the towering and tenebrous boughs of the cypress

Met in a dusky arch, and trailing mosses in mid-air

Waved like banners that hang on the walls of ancient cathedrals.

Deathlike the silence seemed, and unbroken, save by the herons

Home to their roosts in the cedar-trees returning at sunset,

Or by the owl, as he greeted the moon with demoniac laughter.

Lovely the moonlight was as it glanced and gleamed on the water,

Gleamed on the columns of cypress and cedar sustaining the arches,

Down through whose broken vaults it fell as through chinks in a ruin.

Dreamlike, and indistinct, and strange were all things around them;

And o’er their spirits there came a feeling of wonder and sadness, —

Strange forebodings of ill, unseen and that cannot be compassed.

As, at the tramp of a horse’s hoof on the turf of the prairies,

Far in advance are closed the leaves of the shrinking mimosa,

So, at the hoof-beats of fate, with sad forebodings of evil,

Shrinks and closes the heart, ere the stroke of doom has attained it.

But Evangeline’s heart was sustained by a vision, that faintly

Floated before her eyes, and beckoned her on through the moonlight.

It was the thought of her brain that assumed the shape of a phantom.

Through those shadowy aisles had Gabriel wandered before her,

And every stroke of the oar now brought him nearer and nearer.

Then in his place, at the prow of the boat, rose one of the oarsmen,

And, as a signal sound, if others like them peradventure

Sailed on those gloomy and midnight streams, blew a blast on his bugle.

Wild through the dark colonnades and corridors leafy the blast rang,

Breaking the seal of silence, and giving tongues to the forest.

Soundless above them the banners of moss just stirred to the music.

Multitudinous echoes awoke and died in the distance,

Over the watery floor, and beneath the reverberant branches;

But not a voice replied; no answer came from the darkness;

And, when the echoes had ceased, like a sense of pain was the silence.

Then Evangeline slept; but the boatmen rowed through the midnight,

Silent at times, then singing familiar Canadian boat-songs,

Such as they sang of old on their own Acadian rivers,

And through the night were heard the mysterious sounds of the desert,

Far off, — indistinct, — as of wave or wind in the forest,

Mixed with the whoop of the crane and the roar of the grim alligator.

Thus ere another noon they emerged from the shades; and before them

Lay, in the golden sun, the lakes of 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,

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,

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 grape-vine

Hung their ladder of ropes aloft like the ladder of Jacob,

On whose pendulous stairs the angels ascending, descending,

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.

Nearer and ever nearer, among the numberless islands,

Darted a light, swift boat, that sped away o’er the water,

Urged on its course by the sinewy arms of hunters and trappers.

Northward its prow was turned, to the land of the bison and beaver.

At the helm sat a youth, with countenance thoughtful and care-worn.

Dark and neglected locks overshadowed his brow, and a sadness

Somewhat beyond his years on his face was legibly written.

Gabriel was it, who, weary with waiting, unhappy and restless,

Sought in the Western wilds oblivion of self and of sorrow.

Swiftly they glided along, close under the lee of the island,

But by the opposite bank, and behind a screen of palmettos,

So that they saw not the boat, where it lay concealed in the willows,

And undisturbed by the dash of their oars, and unseen, were the sleepers,

Angel of God was there none to awaken the slumbering maiden.

Swiftly they glided away, like the shade of a cloud on the prairie.

After the sound of their oars on the tholes had died in the distance,

As from a magic trance the sleepers awoke, and the maiden

Said with a sigh to the friendly priest, “O Father Felician!

Something says in my heart that near me Gabriel wanders.

Is it a foolish dream, an idle and vague superstition?

Or has an angel passed, and revealed the truth to my spirit?”

Then, with a blush, she added, “Alas for my credulous fancy!

Unto ears like thine such words as these have no meaning.”

But made answer the reverend man, and he smiled as he answered, —

“Daughter, thy words are not idle; nor are they to me without meaning.

Feeling is deep and still; and the word that floats on the surface

Is as the tossing buoy, that betrays where the anchor is hidden.

Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world calls illusions.

Gabriel truly is near thee; for not far away to the southward,

On the banks of the Teche are the towns of St. Maur and St. Martin.

There the long-wandering bride shall be given again to her bridegroom,

There the long-absent pastor regain his flock and his sheepfold.

Beautiful is the land, with its prairies and forests of fruit-trees;

Under the feet a garden of flowers, and the bluest of heavens

Bending above, and resting its dome on the walls of the forest.

They who dwell there have named it the Eden of Louisiana.”

With these words of cheer they arose and continued their journey.

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,

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 mockingbird, wildest of singers,

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.

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,

Slowly they entered the Teche, 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.

III.

NEAR to the bank of the river, o’ershadowed by oaks, from whose branches

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

Girdled it round about with a belt of luxuriant blossoms,

Filling the air with fragrance. The house itself was of timbers

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,

Stationed the dove-cots were, as love’s perpetual symbol,

Scenes of endless wooing, and endless contentions of rivals.

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

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

Hanging loose from their spars in a motionless calm in the tropics,

Stood a cluster of trees, with tangled cordage of grape-vines.

Just where the woodlands met the flowery surf of the prairie,

Mounted upon his horse, with Spanish saddle and stirrups,

Sat a herdsman, arrayed in gaiters and doublet of deerskin.

Broad and brown was the face that from under the Spanish sombrero

Gazed on the peaceful scene, with the lordly look of its master.

Round about him were numberless herds of kine, that were grazing

Quietly in the meadows, and breathing the vapory freshness

That uprose from the river, and spread itself over the landscape.

Slowly lifting the horn that hung at his side, and expanding

Fully his broad, deep chest, he blew a blast, that resounded

Wildly and sweet and far, through the still damp air of the evening.

Suddenly out of the grass the long white horns of the cattle

Rose like flakes of foam on the adverse currents of ocean.

Silent a moment they gazed, then bellowing rushed o’er the prairie,

And the whole mass became a cloud, a shade in the distance.

Then as the herdsman turned to the house, through the gate of the garden

Saw he the forms of the priest and the maiden advancing to meet him.

Suddenly down from his horse he sprang in amazement, and forward

Rushed with extended arms and exclamations of wonder;

When they beheld his face, they recognized Basil the blacksmith.

Hearty his welcome was, as he led his guests to the garden.

There in an arbor of roses with endless question and answer

Gave they vent to their hearts, and renewed their friendly embraces,

Laughing and weeping by turns, or sitting silent and thoughtful.

Thoughtful, for Gabriel came not; and now dark doubts and misgivings

Stole o’er the maiden’s heart; and Basil, somewhat embarrassed,

Broke the silence and said, “If you came by the Atchafalaya,

How have you nowhere encountered my Gabriel’s boat on the bayous?”

Over Evangeline’s face at the words of Basil a shade passed.

Tears came into her eyes, and she said, with a tremulous accent,

“Gone? is Gabriel gone?” and, concealing her face on his shoulder,

All her o’erburdened heart gave way, and she wept and lamented.

Then the good Basil said, — and his voice grew blithe as he said it, —

“Be of good cheer, my child; it is only to-day he departed.

Foolish boy! he has left me alone with my herds and my horses.

Moody and restless grown, and tried and troubled, his spirit

Could no longer endure the calm of this quiet existence.

Thinking ever of thee, uncertain and sorrowful ever,

Ever silent, or speaking only of thee and his troubles,

He at length had become so tedious to men and to maidens,

Tedious even to me, that at length I bethought me, and sent him

Unto the town of Adayes to trade for mules with the Spaniards.

Thence he will follow the Indian trails to the Ozark Mountains,

Hunting for furs in the forests, on rivers trapping the beaver.

Therefore be of good cheer; we will follow the fugitive lover;

He is not far on his way, and the Fates and the streams are against him.

Up and away to-morrow, and through the red dew of the morning

We will follow him fast and bring him back to his prison.”

Then glad voices were heard, and up from the banks of the river,

Borne aloft on his comrades’ arms, came Michael the fiddler.

Long under Basil’s roof had he lived like a god on Olympus,

Having no other care than dispensing music to mortals.

Far renowned was he for his silver locks and his fiddle.

“Long live Michael,” they cried, “our brave Acadian minstrel!”

As they bore him aloft in triumphal procession; and straightway

Father Felician advanced with Evangeline, greeting the old man

Kindly and oft, and recalling the past, while Basil, enraptured,

Hailed with hilarious joy his old companions and gossips,

Laughing loud and long, and embracing mothers and daughters.

Much they marvelled to see the wealth of the ci-devant blacksmith,

All his domains and his herds, and his patriarchal demeanor;

Much they marvelled to hear his tales of the soil and the climate,

And of the prairies, whose numberless herds were his who would take them;

Each one thought in his heart, that he, too, would go and do likewise.

Thus they ascended the steps, and, crossing the airy veranda,

Entered the hall of the house, where already the supper of Basil

Waited his late return; and they rested and feasted together.

Over the joyous feast the sudden darkness descended.

All was silent without, and, illuming the landscape with silver,

Fair rose the dewy moon and the myriad stars; but within doors,

Brighter than these, shone the faces of friends in the glimmering lamplight.

Then from his station aloft, at the head of the table, the herdsman

Poured forth his heart and his wine together in endless profusion.

Lighting his pipe, that was filled with sweet Natchitoches tobacco,

Thus he spake to his guests, who listened, and smiled as they listened: —

“Welcome once more, my friends, who long have been friendless and homeless,

Welcome once more to a home, that is better perchance than the old one!

Here no hungry winter congeals our blood like the rivers;

Here no stony ground provokes the wrath of the farmer.

Smoothly the ploughshare runs through the soil, as a keel through the water.

All the year round the orange-groves are in blossom; and grass grows

More in a single night than a whole Canadian summer.

Here, too, numberless herds run wild and unclaimed in the prairies;

Here, too, lands may be had for the asking, and forests of timber

With a few blows of the axe are hewn and framed into houses.

After your houses are built, and your fields are yellow with harvests,

No King George of England shall drive you away from your homesteads,

Burning your dwellings and barns, and stealing your farms and your cattle.”

Speaking these words, he blew a wrathful cloud from his nostrils,

While his huge, brown hand came thundering down on the table,

So that the guests all started; and Father Felician, astounded,

Suddenly paused, with a pinch of snuff halfway to his nostrils.

But the brave Basil resumed, and his words were milder and gayer:

“Only beware of the fever, my friends, beware of the fever!

For it is not like that of our cold Acadian climate,

Cured by wearing a spider hung round one’s neck in a nutshell!”

Then there were voices heard at the door, and footsteps approaching

Sounded upon the stairs and the floor of the breezy veranda.

It was the neighboring Creoles and small Acadian planters,

Who had been summoned all to the house of Basil the Herdsman.

Merry the meeting was of ancient comrades and neighbors:

Friend clasped friend in his arms; and they who before were as strangers,

Meeting in exile, became straightway as friends to each other,

Drawn by the gentle bond of a common country together.

But in the neighboring hall a strain of music, proceeding

From the accordant strings of Michael’s melodious fiddle,

Broke up all further speech. Away, like children delighted,

All things forgotten beside, they gave themselves to the maddening

Whirl of the dizzy dance, as it swept and swayed to the music,

Dreamlike, with beaming eyes and the rush of fluttering garments.

Meanwhile, apart, at the head of the hall, the priest and the herdsman

Sat, conversing together of past and present and future;

While Evangeline stood like one entranced, for within her

Olden memories rose, and loud in the midst of the music

Heard she the sound of the sea, and an irrepressible sadness

Came o’er her heart, and unseen she stole forth into the garden.

Beautiful was the night. Behind the black wall of the forest,

Tipping its summit with silver, arose the moon. On the river

Fell here and there through the branches a tremulous gleam of the moonlight,

Like the sweet thoughts of love on a darkened and devious spirit.

Nearer and round about her, the manifold flowers of the garden

Poured out their souls in odors, that were their prayers and confessions

Unto the night, as it went its way, like a silent Carthusian.

Fuller of fragrance than they, and as heavy with shadows and night-dews,

Hung the heart of the maiden. The calm and the magical moonlight

Seemed to inundate her soul with indefinable longings,

As, through the garden gate, beneath the shade of the oak-trees,

Passed she along the path to the edge of the measureless prairie.

Silent it lay, with a silvery haze upon it, and the fire-flies

Gleaming and floating away in mingled and infinite numbers.

Over her head the stars, the thoughts of God in the heavens,

Shone on the eyes of man, who had ceased to marvel and worship,

Save when a blazing comet was seen on the walls of that temple,

As if a hand had appeared and written upon them, “Upharsin.”

And the soul of the maiden, between the stars and the fire-flies,

Wandered alone, and she cried, “O Gabriel! O my beloved!

Art thou so near unto me, and yet I cannot behold thee?

Art thou so near unto me, and yet thy voice does not reach me?

Ah! how often thy feet have trod this path to the prairie!

Ah! how often thine eyes have looked on the woodlands around me!

Ah! how often beneath this oak, returning from labor,

Thou hast lain down to rest, and to dream of me in thy slumbers!

When shall these eyes behold, these arms be folded about thee?”

Loud and sudden and near the note of a whippoorwill sounded

Like a flute in the woods; and anon, through the neighboring thickets,

Farther and farther away it floated and dropped into silence.

“Patience!” whispered the oaks from oracular caverns of darkness;

And, from the moonlit meadow, a sigh responded, “To-morrow!”

Bright rose the sun next day; and all the flowers of the garden

Bathed his shining feet with their tears, and anointed his tresses

With the delicious balm that they bore in their vases of crystal.

“Farewell!” said the priest, as he stood at the shadowy threshold;

“See that you bring us the Prodigal Son from his fasting and famine,

And, too, the Foolish Virgin, who slept when the bridegroom was coming.”

“Farewell!” answered the maiden, and, smiling, with Basil descended

Down to the river’s brink, where the boatmen already were waiting.

Thus beginning their journey with morning, and sunshine, and gladness,

Swiftly they followed the flight of him who was speeding before them,

Blown by the blast of fate like a dead leaf over the desert.

Not that day, nor the next, nor yet the day that succeeded,

Found they trace of his course, in lake or forest or river,

Nor, after many days, had they found him; but vague and uncertain

Rumors alone were their guides through a wild and desolate country;

Till, at the little inn of the Spanish town of Adayes,

Weary and worn, they alighted, and learned from the garrulous landlord,

That on the day before, with horses and guides and companions,

Gabriel left the village, and took the road of the prairies.

IV.

FAR in the West there lies a desert land, where the mountains

Lift, through perpetual snows, their lofty and luminous summits.

Down from their jagged, deep ravines, where the gorge, like a gateway,

Opens a passage rude to the wheels of the emigrant’s wagon,

Westward the Oregon flows and the Walleway and Owyhee.

Eastward, with devious course, among the Windriver Mountains,

Through the Sweet-water Valley precipitate leaps the Nebraska;

And to the south, from Fontaine-qui-bout and the Spanish sierras,

Fretted with sands and rocks, and swept by the wind of the desert,

Numberless torrents, with ceaseless sound, descend to the ocean,

Like the great chords of a harp, in loud and solemn vibrations.

Spreading between these streams are the wondrous, beautiful prairies,

Billowy bays of grass ever rolling in shadow and sunshine,

Bright with luxuriant clusters of roses and purple amorphas.

Over them wandered the buffalo herds, and the elk and the roebuck;

Over them wandered the wolves, and herds of riderless horses;

Fires that blast and blight, and winds that are weary with travel;

Over them wander the scattered tribes of Ishmael’s children,

Staining the desert with blood; and above their terrible war-trails

Circles and sails aloft, on pinions majestic, the vulture,

Like the implacable soul of a chieftain slaughtered in battle,

By invisible stairs ascending and scaling the heavens.

Here and there rise smokes from the camps of these savage marauders;

Here and there rise groves from the margins of swift-running rivers;

And the grim, taciturn bear, the anchorite monk of the desert,

Climbs down their dark ravines to dig for roots by the brookside,

And over all is the sky, the clear and crystalline heaven,

Like the protecting hand of God inverted above them.

Into this wonderful land, at the base of the Ozark Mountains,

Gabriel far had entered, with hunters and trappers behind him.

Day after day, with their Indian guides, the maiden and Basil

Followed his flying steps, and thought each day to o’ertake him.

Sometimes they saw, or thought they saw, the smoke of his camp-fire

Rise in the morning air from the distant plain; but at nightfall,

When they had reached the place, they found only embers and ashes.

And, though their hearts were sad at times and their bodies were weary,

Hope still guided them on, as the magic Fata Morgana

Showed them her lakes of light, that retreated and vanished before them.

Once, as they sat by their evening fire, there silently entered

Into the little camp an Indian woman, whose features

Wore deep traces of sorrow, and patience as great as her sorrow.

She was a Shawnee woman returning home to her people,

From the far-off hunting-grounds of the cruel Camanches,

Where her Canadian husband, a Coureur-des-Bois, had been murdered.

Touched were their hearts at her story, and warmest and friendliest welcome

Gave they, with words of cheer, and she sat and feasted among them

On the buffalo-meat and the venison cooked on the embers.

But when their meal was done, and Basil and all his companions,

Worn with the long day’s march and the chase of the deer and the bison,

Stretched themselves on the ground, and slept where the quivering fire-light

Flashed on their swarthy cheeks, and their forms wrapped up in their blankets,

Then at the door of Evangeline’s tent she sat and repeated

Slowly, with soft, low voice, and the charm of her Indian accent,

All the tale of her love, with its pleasures, and pains, and reverses.

Much Evangeline wept at the tale, and to know that another

Hapless heart like her own had loved and had been disappointed.

Moved to the depths of her soul by pity and woman’s compassion,

Yet in her sorrow pleased that one who had suffered was near her,

She in turn related her love and all its disasters.

Mute with wonder the Shawnee sat, and when she had ended

Still was mute; but at length, as if a mysterious horror

Passed through her brain, she spake, and repeated the tale of the Mowis;

Mowis, the bridegroom of snow, who won and wedded a maiden,

But, when the morning came, arose and passed from the wigwam,

Fading and melting away and dissolving into the sunshine,

Till she beheld him no more, though she followed far into the forest.

Then, in those sweet, low tones, that seemed like a weird incantation,

Told she the tale of the fair Lilinau, who was wooed by a phantom,

That, through the pines o’er her father’s lodge, in the hush of the twilight,

Breathed like the evening wind, and whispered love to the maiden,

Till she followed his green and waving plume through the forest,

And never more returned, nor was seen again by her people.

Silent with wonder and strange surprise, Evangeline listened

To the soft flow of her magical words, till the region around her

Seemed like enchanted ground, and her swarthy guest the enchantress.

Slowly over the tops of the Ozark Mountains the moon rose,

Lighting the little tent, and with a mysterious splendor

Touching the sombre leaves, and embracing and filling the woodland.

With a delicious sound the brook rushed by, and the branches

Swayed and sighed overhead in scarcely audible whispers.

Filled with the thoughts of love was Evangeline’s heart, but a secret,

Subtile sense crept in of pain and indefinite terror,

As the cold, poisonous snake creeps into the nest of the swallow.

It was no earthly fear. A breath from the region of spirits

Seemed to float in the air of night; and she felt for a moment

That, like the Indian maid, she, too, was pursuing a phantom.

With this thought she slept, and the fear and the phantom had vanished.

Early upon the morrow the march was resumed; and the Shawnee

Said, as they journeyed along, “On the western slope of these mountains

Dwells in his little village the Black Robe chief of the Mission.

Much he teaches the people, and tells them of Mary and Jesus;

Loud laugh their hearts with joy, and weep with pain, as they hear him.”

Then, with a sudden and secret emotion, Evangeline answered,

“Let us go to the Mission, for there good tidings await us!”

Thither they turned their steeds; and behind a spur of the mountains,

Just as the sun went down, they heard a murmur of voices,

And in a meadow green and broad, by the bank of a river,

Saw the tents of the Christians, the tents of the Jesuit Mission.

Under a towering oak, that stood in the midst of the village,

Knelt the Black Robe chief with his children. A crucifix fastened

High on the trunk of the tree, and overshadowed by grape-vines,

Looked with its agonized face on the multitude kneeling beneath it.

This was their rural chapel. Aloft, through the intricate arches

Of its aerial roof, arose the chant of their vespers,

Mingling its notes with the soft susurrus and sighs of the branches.

Silent, with heads uncovered, the travellers, nearer approaching,

Knelt on the swarded floor, and joined in the evening devotions.

But when the service was done, and the benediction had fallen

Forth from the hands of the priest, like seed from the hands of the sower,

Slowly the reverend man advanced to the strangers and bade them

Welcome; and when they replied, he smiled with benignant expression,

Hearing the homelike sounds of his mother-tongue in the forest,

And, with words of kindness, conducted them into his wigwam.

There upon mats and skins they reposed, and on cakes of the maize-ear

Feasted, and slaked their thirst from the water-gourd of the teacher.

Soon was their story told; and the priest with solemnity answered: —

“Not six suns have risen and set since Gabriel, seated

On this mat by my side, where now the maiden reposes,

Told me this same sad tale; then arose and continued his journey!”

Soft was the voice of the priest, and he spake with an accent of kindness;

But on Evangeline’s heart fell his words as in winter the snow-flakes

Fall into some lone nest from which the birds have departed.

“Far to the north he has gone,” continued the priest; “but in autumn,

When the chase is done, will return again to the Mission.”

Then Evangeline said, and her voice was meek and submissive,

“Let me remain with thee, for my soul is sad and afflicted.”

So seemed it wise and well unto all; and betimes on the morrow,

Mounting his Mexican steed, with his Indian guides and companions,

Homeward Basil returned, and Evangeline stayed at the Mission.

Slowly, slowly, slowly the days succeeded each other, —

Days and weeks and months; and the fields of maize that were springing

Green from the ground when a stranger she came, now waving above her,

Lifted their slender shafts, with leaves interlacing, and forming

Cloisters for mendicant crows and granaries pillaged by squirrels.

Then in the golden weather the maize was husked, and the maidens

Blushed at each blood-red ear, for that betokened a lover,

But at the crooked laughed, and called it a thief in the cornfield.

Even the blood-red ear to Evangeline brought not her lover.

“Patience!” the priest would say; “have faith, and thy prayer will be answered!

Look at this delicate plant that lifts its head from the meadow,

See how its leaves all point to the north, as true as the magnet;

This is the compass-flower, that the finger of God has suspended

Here on its fragile stock, to direct the traveller’s journey

Over the sea-like, pathless, limitless waste of the desert.

Such in the soul of man is faith. The blossoms of passion,

Gay and luxuriant flowers, are brighter and fuller of fragrance,

But they beguile us, and lead us astray, and their odor is deadly.

Only this humble plant can guide us here, and hereafter

Crown us with asphodel flowers, that are wet with the dews of nepenthe.”

So came the autumn, and passed, and the winter, — yet Gabriel came not;

Blossomed the opening spring, and the notes of the robin and bluebird

Sounded sweet upon wold and in wood, yet Gabriel came not.

But on the breath of the summer winds a rumor was wafted

Sweeter than song of bird, or hue or odor of blossom.

Far to the north and east, it said, in the Michigan forests,

Gabriel had his lodge by the banks of the Saginaw river.

And, with returning guides, that sought the lakes of St. Lawrence,

Saying a sad farewell, Evangeline went from the Mission.

When over weary ways, by long and perilous marches,

She had attained at length the depths of the Michigan forests,

Found she the hunter’s lodge deserted and fallen to ruin!

Thus did the long sad years glide on, and in seasons and places

Divers and distant far was seen the wandering maiden; —

Now in the Tents of Grace of the meek Moravian Missions,

Now in the noisy camps and the battle-fields of the army,

Now in secluded hamlets, in towns and populous cities.

Like a phantom she came, and passed away unremembered.

Fair was she and young, when in hope began the long journey;

Faded was she and old, when in disappointment it ended.

Each succeeding year stole something away from her beauty.

Leaving behind it, broader and deeper, the gloom and the shadow.

Then there appeared and spread faint streaks of gray o’er her forehead,

Dawn of another life, that broke o’er her earthly horizon,

As in the eastern sky the first faint streaks of the morning.

V.

IN that delightful land, which is washed by the Delaware’s waters,

Guarding in sylvan shades the name of Penn the apostle.

Stands on the banks of its beautiful stream the city he founded.

There all the air is balm, and the peach is the emblem of beauty,

And the streets still re-echo the names of the trees of the forest,

As if they fain would appease the Dryads whose haunts they molested.

There from the troubled sea had Evangeline landed, an exile,

Finding among the children of Penn a home and a country.

There old Rene Leblanc had died; and when he departed,

Saw at his side only one of all his hundred descendants.

Something at least there was in the friendly streets of the city,

Something that spake to her heart, and made her no longer a stranger;

And her ear was pleased with the Thee and Thou of the Quakers,

For it recalled the past, the old Acadian country,

Where all men were equal, and all were brothers and sisters.

So, when the fruitless search, the disappointed endeavor,

Ended, to recommence no more upon earth, uncomplaining,

Thither, as leaves to the light, were turned her thoughts and her footsteps.

As from a mountain’s top the rainy mists of the morning

Roll away, and afar we behold the landscape below us,

Sun-illumined, with shining rivers and cities and hamlets,

So fell the mists from her mind, and she saw the world far below her,

Dark no longer, but all illumined with love; and the pathway

Which she had climbed so far, lying smooth and fair in the distance.

Gabriel was not forgotten. Within her heart was his image,

Clothed in the beauty of love and youth, as last she beheld him,

Only more beautiful made by his deathlike silence and absence.

Into her thoughts of him time entered not, for it was not.

Over him years had no power; he was not changed, but transfigured;

He had become to her heart as one who is dead, and not absent;

Patience and abnegation of self, and devotion to others,

This was the lesson a life of trial and sorrow had taught her.

So was her love diffused, but, like to some odorous spices,

Suffered no waste nor loss, though filling the air with aroma.

Other hope had she none, nor wish in life, but to follow

Meekly, with reverent steps, the sacred feet of her Saviour.

Thus many years she lived as a Sister of Mercy; frequenting

Lonely and wretched roofs in the crowded lanes of the city,

Where distress and want concealed themselves from the sunlight,

Where disease and sorrow in garrets languished neglected.

Night after night, when the world was asleep, as the watchman repeated

Loud, through the gusty streets, that all was well in the city,

High at some lonely window he saw the light of her taper.

Day after day, in the gray of the dawn, as slow through the suburbs

Plodded the German farmer, with flowers and fruits for the market,

Met he that meek, pale face, returning home from its watchings.

Then it came to pass that a pestilence fell on the city,

Presaged by wondrous signs, and mostly by flocks of wild pigeons,

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.

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; —

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

Gleams of celestial light encircle her forehead 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.

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.

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;

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,

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,

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.

Suddenly, as if arrested by fear or a feeling of wonder,

Still she stood, with her colorless lips apart, while a shudder

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.

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,

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.

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;

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.

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,

As when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind at a casement.

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,

Meekly she bowed her own, and murmured, “Father, I thank thee!”

STILL stands the forest primeval; but far away from its shadow,

Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping.

Under the humble walls of the little Catholic churchyard,

In the heart of the city, they lie, unknown and unnoticed.

Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside them,

Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at rest and forever,

Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer are busy,

Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased from their labors,

Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed their journey!

Still stands the forest primeval; but under the shade of its branches

Dwells another race, with other customs and language.

Only along the shore of the mournful and misty Atlantic

Linger a few Acadian peasants, whose fathers from exile

Wandered back to their native land to die in its bosom.

In the fisherman’s cot the wheel and the loom are still busy;

Maidens still wear their Norman caps and their kirtles of homespun,

And by the evening fire repeat Evangeline’s story.

While from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced, neighboring ocean

Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

NOTES,

EVANOELINB,

The introdnotion briiig& the reader or listener in imagination into thelocality of the erenta narrated. In Longfellow's time the forest was notpnineTal, that is, never disturbed by the axe.

3-4. Druids.?Were the priests, bards and lawgivers of the Keltic in-habitants of ancient France and Britain. The word is thought to bederived from i(Wi, an oak, from their worshipping in consecrated grovesof that tree. The choice of this image was perhaps due to the analogybetween the Kelts and the Acadians, both of whom were to disappearbefore a superior and stronger people.

eld.?The use of this form for old is quite unnecessary. Cf. Thom-son's archaic forms in the CaatU of Indolence^ and Byron's at the begin-ning of Childe Harold.

Develop the comparisons in IL 3 and 4, showing the foro? of ' voicessad and prophetic,' and 'beards that rest.'

Is the transition from L 3 to 1. 4 too abrupt ?

6. Loud- ?Very true of those rocky headlands that jut out and areundermined by the sea. The Bay of Fundy is very long and narrow,(180 miles long by 35 wide), and the tides are very fierce, rising to theheight of fully 70 feet, the bay lying in the direction of the great tidalwave.

Was Longfellow imitative of the sound here t Language, withoutspecial seeking, is naturally imitative of it. Vast numbers of words havebeen formed on this aualogy between the sound and the sense. Whythen have not different languages similar forms for the thimder, the washof the sea, the crack of the rifie, etc. ?

6. answers.?Is ' wails' the subject or the object ol this verb ? Isthe answer given, and, if so, what is it ?

8. roe.?This picture of the startled roe prefigures, it is thought^ thetragedy of the story. Can you point out any defect in the simile ?

9. Acadian.?In the earliest records Acadie is called Cadie, after-wards Acadie or L'Acadie. The name was probably adopted by th?

NOTES.

French from a Micmac word laeamng place or region, and often used rw anaflix to other words, to denote the place where found. The Frenchturned this into Cadie or Acadie, the English into Quoddy. ComparePassamaquoddy, i.e., Pollock ground.

10. Note the beauty of the next few lines, thtj perfect image of 11. 10and 11, the abundance of I's ?nd r'u^ and the alliteratioo of 10, also theneat antithesis in 11.

14. sprinkle.?Does not seem the fittest word here, but * scattered*had been already used. What object has the poet in thus outliuiug thepromised story ? Would it be hurtful or not, to the interest of the tale,in ordinary story telling.

16. endures.?How does this difiFer in meaning from * is patient'?

Note the mannerism of Longfellow in beginning 11. 16, 17 ; 18, 19 withthe same phrase. This was made a characteristic feature of Hiawatha,and is quite frequent in his hexameter verse.

20. Minas.?The Bay of Fundy at its upper (eastern) end is divided bythe County of Cumberland into two parts. The southern is the MinasBasin, which has on the N. the Counties of Cumberland and Colchester,and on the S. Hants and Kings. On the southern shore, in Kings, inthe township of Horton, was the village of Grand-Pr6, ?.?., GreatMeadow.

21. This reminds us of the first line of Goldsmith's Traveller,

* Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow.'

24. The Acadians of the Miuas Settlement, brought out by Razilly andChamis^, in 1633-40, were mainly di-awn from what is now the depart-ments of Vendue, and Lower Charente. Coming from a low, marshycountry, they found in this part of Acadia the rich lands under similarconditions, and so they dealt with them by artificial dikes, as they hadbeen accustomed to do in the motherland.

25. turbulent-?It has been recorded of this quarter of the Baythat cattle have frequently been overtaken and drowned, so rapid at thefull moon is the advance of the tidal wave.

27. The flax plant loves low, rich lands.

29. Blomidon.?A rocky mountainous headland, of red sandstone, onthe S. side of the narrow entrance to Minas Basin, about 400 ft. high.The mountains referred to may be the Gobequid mountains, on thenorthern side of the Basin, right opposite to Grand-Pr6.

30-1. Note and develop the metaphors in these lines. What are themost common faults in the use of metaphors ? Do you see any here ?

As perBonal metaphor and cxpresoed metaphor constitute the sub-stra-

NOTES. 71

turn of all poetic language, and as implied metaphor forma so large a partof our ordinary speech, the student should eudeavor to get clear ideasof their dififerences. Erpanding a metaphor into a fully expressed simUewill Berve to show whether one clearly comprehends and appreciates thecomparison, and also whether there are any defects in it.

Why is the relation between persons (as here) oftener taken to illus-trate that between things, than the relation between things to illustratethat between persons.

Note that Longfellow makes the fogs pitch their tents, and yet thatthe fogs (or * mists') are the very stufif of which the tents are made.This inclusion of metaphors is often unavoidable. As long as the generalidea is given, and that more vividly, we must not push the comparisoninto much detail.

32. reposed- ? Why is this an efifective word?

This picture of a village of Acadia, i.e., of Normandy, II 32-57,should be carefully examined.

The objects selected should be (i) Those most likely to strike thecasual observer, (ii) Those characteristic of a Norman village, as dis-tinguished from an English or a New England village, (iii) Persor^sshould be referred to to give greater interest, and also should be charac-teristic of the locality. In short does this word picture call up to themind an image at once striking and natural, i.e., has it local color andimpressiveness ? The student will do well to note the advantages anddisadvantages of word pictures and paintings, as compared with realpictures and paintings.

34. Such.?Does this refer to the material or to the style ?reign>?Why not reigns ?

Henries.?Probably refers to Henry III., 1574-89, the last of theValois, and Henry IV. of Navarre, 1589-1610. Is this the usual spelling ?

35. dormer-windows?(Lat. dormire, to sleep.) Are windowsstanding vertically in a small gable that looks out of the side of a slopingroof, in order to light the attio or garret. Dormers were invented about1360.

36. gables.?The houses of the middle ages had, almost all, theirgables facing the street. The triangular part called the gable projectedbeyond the lower part, and was supported by pillars. Thus the doorwaywas shaded and protected, as it is now by our verandahs and porticos.In Belgium and Germany streets of this style are common in the oldeiand remoter towns.

38. The term kirtle was sometimes applied to the jacket only, some-

S

72 SOTES.

times to the oatside petticoat attached to H. A full kirtle was both,a half kirtle applied to either. A full kirtle is probably here meant.

40. Frenchwomen are well known to be fonder of color in dress thanEnglishwomen. Therein some say they show their taste.

40. distaff.?Was a staff either held in the left hand or stuck in thebelt, on which the flax or wool was loosely fastened. The spindle inrevolving was made to recede from the spinster, and the thread was thusdrawn out. The spinning wheel (Nuremberg, 1530), fixed the spindle ina frame, and made it revolve by a wheel, turned by foot or hand, andreduced the distaff to a thing of slight importance comparativelyspeaking. Still the distaff is taken by the poets as the peculiar emblemof female as opposed to male occupations, and is even used as a synonymfor woman herself. Only a few years later than the date of this tale,Hargreaves invented the spinning-jenny, (176S).

45. Reverend.?Note the position of this word, and the expressive-ness of up.

48. Note the archaic tinge given by the use of prevailed and anon.

49. AngeluS-?Or in full Angelus Domini, is the name given to thebell which at morning, noon and night, called the people to prayer, inmemory of the visit of the angel to the Virgin Mary. Introduced intoFrance, 1542.

50. pale blue-?Is the common color of smoke ; also of incense. Arethere any other points recommending this as a good simile ?

53. of Grod, of man.?Are these phrases equivalent to subjective orobjective possessives ? See H. 8. Gram., XIII., 63.

52-7. Hannay represents the Acadians in a very different light, show-ing them to be litifi:ious, insincere in their professions, and unfaithful totheir solemn pledges of neutrality, and acting in an underhand andhostile manner to the English, who had shown them ?very indulgence.[Hist, of Acadia, Chap. 22.)

57. What figure?

62. StalwortlL?Tall, strong and brave. Stalwart U now the oon?-mon form. Stalwarih was the Saxon.

the man. ?Would this be better ?

65. Note that this line says eummere; L 62 says winters. Why thedifferenoe ?

66. Hoes he mean tke Uaekberrj ?

What additional force in ' by the way-rido' ?

67. Would the omissi(? of shade be an ixaprovem?iit T

68. * Sweet as the br?&tb of kins,' is common eaumgh witk th? povtsLi it trae to nature '

?OTBl. T8

?. ' Noontide,' * noonday,' ? midday.' Which is beat in this position!

TO. flagon.?A large drinking vessel with narrow month. The time19 happily going by when a maiden carrying ale to the haireat field makesa pleasing picture, be she ever so lovely.

72. Is CM a connective of time or of manner ?

The common garden hyssop imparts an agreeable aromatic odour tothe consecrated water. It is not the hyssop of Scripture.

74. chaplet.?A string of beads called a paternoster, or rosary, nsedby Roman Catholics to keep count of their prayers.

missal*?Lat. misaa, the mass, the mass book, or book la whioh theordinary ritual of the Roman Catholic Church is contained.

75. A good example of synonymous phrases being a positive gain,' ethereal,'?' celestial,' heavenly. What additional idea does * ethereal'perhaps add ?

Note Longfellow's three pictures of the village maiden, forming a sortof climax in the beautiful comparison of 1. 81.

82. Note the form builded. Account for the use of old forms in poetry.

84 Sycamore-?The sycamore of England is a species of maple,whioh it may be meant for here. In North America the name is oftenapplied to a kind of plane tree. The sycamore and the fig are allied.

penthouse-?A shed with roof sloping only on one side. Not a com-pound of ' house,' but a corruption of ' pentice.' (Pr. appentis, Lat.pendeo, to hang.) See H. S Oram., IV., 46.

88-89. A reminiscence of his European travels.

90. This line reminds one of the poem so familar to all, of th? ' oldoaken bucket that hung in the well.'

93. wains.?A contracted and poetic form of waggon. Note theaccent of ' antique,' and show the connection between it and 'antic'

96. Give the Scriptural reference. Do you consider this an appositeallusion ? Give reasons ? Note that we can say ' days of old,' perhapseven 'ages of old,' but must say 'ancient days,' ' ancient ages.' Isthere any law governing such diflferent usage, or is it merely arbitrary !

99. The staircase is across the gable end, on the outside.

odorous.?Note that Milton accents on either the second or the firstsyllable. In P. L., V. ,481-2, he says, ' Last the bright consummate flowerspirits odorous breathe,' while in Sam. Agon., 72, he says, 'An amberscent of 6dorou8 perfume.' What ia the tendency at the present timewith regard to the position of the accent in words of more than twosyllables ?

102. sang of mutation.?What is meant ? The use of * rattled' and' sang' in such immediate oonnection seems harsh.

74 EVtEM,

106. This line aa a comparison between the devotion and awe of the

religious devotee, and the timidity and adoration of the youthful lover,seems a very good one, but the next, we think, goes too far, and thescriptural allusion errs in comparing great things with small.

108. Give in your own words the underlying meanings that may beconsidered to be conveyed by the phrase, ' by the darkness befriended.Are they in accordance with the nature of the persona, the Ume, and theerrand.

109-110. These lines are very expressive of the lover's eager and yettimid and bashfid presentation of himself at the door?trae to all natureIS well as Grand-Pr^ nature.

Patron Saint.?Is this told in the poem itself?

113. * That seemed a part, etc.' If distasteful to Evangeline, as thenext line intimates, in what did their music consist ?

116. mighty man.?In what sense ? A delicate and skilful touch,expressive of the simplicity and poverty of the Acadians.

honored of.?This good old English use of the genitive after adjec-tives is dying out Already it gives an archaic tinge to the phrase.What classes of adjectives can be thus used ?

118. craft.?AU the crafts in England had at one time their specialguilds, i.e., societies or confraternities, of which a man must have beenan apprentice before being allowed to work at his particular occupation.As trade increased, the guilds united for the securing of special privileges,and under the common guild of merchants (gilda mercatoria) towns firstgot their charters. The smith's craft was always a numerous one, but itsinfluence declined with the decay of feudalism. Why ?

119. Note the use of first names, to give an idea of the simplicity,equality, and familiarity of the village folk.

121. pedagogue.?A good word in this connection. Why ?

122. selfsame book.?The use of the Bible and religious booksgenerally, as reading books for the pupils, has been often defended andopposed. The opposition has csuried the day. Entertainment, not ?n-8tructi<m either secular or religious is thought of. It seems a pity that somany years of youthful time should be passed in reading anecdotes, adven-tures and nursery rhymes. When the memory is keen and retentive, itseems improvident not to store up (from so many thousand hours of read-ing) something more solid, which maturer years may utilize.

122. plain-song.?A name given by the Koman Catholic Church t?the chanbing or recitation of the collects. The melody is very simple,uotes of equal length, and not beyond mi octave in compass. St.

NOTKS. 7i

Ambrose was the inventor, and St. Gregory (Pope Gregory the (Jreat)the perfecter i)f the plain-song as it now exists.

1-8. like a fiery snake?Criticise tlu- simile. Any aUnnon?

130. This is a life-like picture.

133. nuns, etc.?Explain the resemblance which the children noted.The French have another saying similar to this, that they are guestsgoing to the wedding.

139. In Pluquet's Contes Populairc^, treating of Norman superstitions,fables and traits, we tind this : "If one of a swallow's brood be blind, themother seeks on the seashore a little stone, with which she restores itssight. Any one finding this stoue in a swallow's nest has a sovereignremedy."

141-2. The difficulty of keeping an exact parallelism throughout a com-parison is well illustrated here. Bring out the meaning by expandingand paraphrasing.

144. St. Eulalie was a virgin martyr of Merida (Spain), in the perse,cution of the Roman Ivlmperor Diocletian, martyred on the 12th Feb.308. Hence this is St. Eulalie's day. The old French rhymo ran,(Pluqnet)

** Si le soleil rit le jour Ste. Eulalie,

n y aura pommea et cidre k folie."

" On Ste. Kulalie's day, if the sun be showing,

There'll be plenty of apples and cider a flowing."

149. Explain the meaning of 'retreating sun,' 'Scorpion,* *Bird8 ofpaesage,' ' leaden air,' in ordinary language, and show them to be poeti-cal expressions.

153. This simile has been condemned as a departure from Longfellow'susually severe and correct taste. Kxplain how or why it is in bad taste.

169. Summer of All-Saints is our Indian Summer, All-Sainta' daybeing Nov. 1st. The French al^o pall it St. Martin's Summer, St.Martin's day being \ v 11 tb.

160-170 This and th? paragraphs following are m Longfellow's bestand most graceful manner Note (a) the well chosen subject of mention,(b) the well chosen if sometimes not origiiuil phrases, (c) the rhythmical?wing of the lines, (d) the melody and ease of utterance, which united totht^ rhythm make this part of the poem exceedingly music^. It iaeasier to point out faults than beauties, except that general beauty whichpervades this passage as a whole, yet very few faults can be found in thispart of the poem (160-235), even by the moat critical eye. In reading,the feeling steals over oa that Longfellow did not err in ehooainf this

7i Norm.

metre, and that aboTO all he was a consammate artist in the handling ofwords.

170. Herodotus (Bk 7, 31) in relating the expedition of Xerxes againstGreece, tells of a beauteous plane-tree which the king found, of whichhe was so enamored that he dressed it out as a woman, and set a guardby it. A later historian, (not to be outdone, we suppose, by the garru-lous old Greek) added a necklace and jewels.

174-5. These lines are not in agreement with the fact. Cattle that arehoused and let out in the n?.oming often do these things, but not in th?evening after the ' Day with its burden and heat.'

176-7. Same idea with other poets. So Schiller, Wilhelm Tell, Sc I.

" Wie schon der Kuh das Band zu Halge steht."*' Das weisz sie auch, dasz sie den Reihen flihrt.'*

189. The Norman saddles were very high in front, and made chiefly ofwood. Note the term ' saddle-tree,'

193-4. In Tennyson's drauna of Queen Mary, III., 5, the streaming ofthe milk into the sounding pails is brought out by lines containing manyh sounds. " When you came and kissed me, milking the cows."

203. Darted* Show the appropriateness of this word.

206. Pewter was once very common for dishes, spoons, etc., but haswholly gone out of use for such purposes. It is an alloy of tin and lead.

dresser.?Fr. dresser, to arrange. A low cupboard.

207. carols.?This custom of singing carols is as early as the 2ndcentury. They degenerated as times went on, and in the 13th centurywere lamented by the clergy as profane. There seems good excuse forthe severe legislation of the Puritans regarding Christmas. Since theirtime the festivities have been decenter, but, in England at least, theexcessive eating and drinking leaves scanty room for religious exercisesand meditation.

215. The choir is made up of t?ie old man and the wheel. The simileseems a very good one. Note the imitative harmony of ' clock clicked.'

219. ' Rattled' is a common word in this connection. Why is' sounded ' better here ? Note the periphrasis.

221. This is a reversal of the ordinary way of nature, i.e., from thehead to the heart; yet for all that the line strikes one as well put.

222-228. What do you think of the farmer's welcoming speech, as toits agreement with his character and the surroundings ? Derive jovialand give other similar derivatives.

281. jest.?To what does this refer t

234. The idea of good luck from old horseshoes has not yet vanished

HOTU.

77

from the UDeduoated mind. For a protection against witches, oar super-Btitious forefathers nailed them over their doors. Lord Nelson had ensnailed to the mast of his ship, the Victory.

240. See introduction for extracts from the proclamation^

256. Scan this line accordincf to the Herameter matr?.

249. Luoisburg, on Oape Breton, was boilt hj the French early in theLSth century, as a military and naval station. It was taken in 1745by (General Pepperell, commanding an expedition from Massachusetts,restored to Eu^.and by the Treaty of Aix<La-Chapelle, and recapturedby the EngUsh in 1767, under Wolfe and Boscawen.

Beau S^jour was a French fort on the neck of land connecting Acadiawith the mainland. This had just been taken by Winalow's forces be-fore the circumstances mentioned in the text.

Port Royal, afterwards Annapolis Royal, at the mouth of the Anna-polis river, had long been disputed ground, and held alternately byFrench and English, but in 1710 was captured by English from NewEngland, and afterwards retained. Its site was on the N. bank of theAnnapolis river, about six miles lower down than the present city.

247. tMnketh.?Would think be better ? Why ?

252. Does the second part of this line add any force to the first ?

256. What is the farmer's reason for this statement ?

269. The cantract was the legal marriage, but the married life did notbegin perhaps for some time, and in the case of good Catholics not tillafter the rites of the Church had been performed.

267. notary.?An officer authorized to attest contracts ot writings ofany kind. In France he is the necessary maker of all contracts whenthe value exceeds 100 francs. His writings are preserved and registeredby himself, the contracting parties keeping only copies of the original.

270. Shocks. ?A corruption of shag, the root of shaggy.hairs.?Would kair do as well ?

272. supemaL?Another example of Longfellow's shrewd choice ofwords. Supernal means ' celestial' or ' heavenly,' but as the old notarycould hardly have come up to the level indicated by these words, Long-fellow takes refuge in a word less used, therefore less known, and there-fore as yet conveying scarcely any idea but that in the root meaning.

274. A good example of the descent to the commonplace.

275. He probably refers to Queen Anne's War, (1702-13), when theFrench aided the Indians in their wars with the English colonists.

277. guile.?The Acadians have been accused of duplicity. Theywere, indeed, in a difficult position ; drawn one way by their sympath*iea oi race and religion, and the other by the necessity of subnuBsioii.

?OTIt.

280. Loup-garou or ' werewolf, i.e., "tan-wolf. An old saptr&litioiionce especially prevalent in Europe, and still lingering in some parts otFrance. A bogey or ogre (garui), who roams about, devouring infants,and assumes the form of a won (loup). Compare our ' bugbear.'

281. In Devonshire the pixies are credited with riding away horttts andweaving their tails.

28'J. Pluquet relates this superstition, and conjectures that th* whitefleet ermine gave rise to it.

284. On Christmas Eve, so think many of the peasantry of Europe,the oxen still fall on their knees in worship of the new bom Saviour,just as the old legend >-.iy.^ they did in the stable at Bethlehem.

285. This was carried about the person. In Elngland there was the^ame superstition of ahulUDj^' up a spider in a quill and wearing it aboutthe neck.

293. Gossip.?Give the derivation and the original meaning, and men-tion other words tiiat have become degraded in meaning (See H. S.G^r., IV., -to, d.)

296. irnagpna.?Generally u?ed of objects visible to the mental eyeSuggest any suitable syn.aiynis for it hero.

297. irascible.?Distinguish from ' irate

298. why and. wherefore.?Notice that very n.iny cum . in colloquialexpressions are repetitions or tautologies, fulfilling some seeminglynecessary condition of euphony or emphasis, e.g.. 'ways and means,''safe and sound,' ' null and void,' * best of my knowledge and belief.'These are sanctioned by custom and now unexceptionable, presenting but% single idea. Others are common enough, but are tautologies and shouldbe avoided, ?.jr., 'prominent and leading citizens,' ' rules and regula-tions, etc.'

302. This is an old Florentine story, and in a somewhat altered formis the theme of Kossini's opera of La Gazza ladra (the thievish magpie,1817).

325 inwoven.?Discuss the appropriateness of this word.

32S-9. Bring out by a paraphrase what you conceive to be the meaningof 1. .{28, and discuss the appropriateness of the simile. Does the phrase' in fantastic shapes' add to or detract from its effect ?

346. Note L'a skill in working into his verse such polysyllabic phraseaas ' unsuccessful manoeuvre.' Words of three syllables accented on thesecond, lend themselves very easily to this kind of verse.

;U8. embrasure.?The sloping or spreading aides of a wall or window.rhe word is most familiar in its military sense, and its use here ia doubt*IftSF due to the exigencies of the metre.

NOTBI. 79

300. Ezplaiii the epithet 'pallid.'

351-2. Forget-me-nots are emblems of friendship. Theae beautifullines have been much admired, and the slight discrepancy aa to the colorof the flowers and the stars la scarcely noticed,

364. curlew.?In the middle ages this was doubtieaa a useful regula-tion, when police protection was wanting and law was weak. Hence itbecame an oflfence to be on the street after dark, and honest people werewarned by the bell, which rang according to custom from 7 to 9, to locktheir doors, cover their firea, (Fr. eouvre-feu) and go to bed. Note otherforma of the same root, couvre, in ' kerchief' and ' coverlet.'

362. A bold hyperbole.

370-1. The effects of the moon or moonlight both in love and lunacyhave been mentioned by many generations of poeta and other writers.Paraphrase 1. 371, so as to bring out the true meaning of the comparison.

376-7. at times, etc.?N^ote this in connection with ' swelled andobeyed ita power '

381. What connection has this compariaon with Evangeline or Evange-line'i position, or the story to follow ?

In the preceding picture, (IL 199-.381) there is scarcely anything origi-nal, and nothing beyond the ordinary in the circumstances. Simple andignorant Acadian peasants, yet L<-)agfellow has managed to invest thewhole with a charm, and has given nobleness to his chief characters,graceful beauty to the heroine, strength and comeliness to the youth.honesty which we revere to the farmer, and honesty which we respect tothe bluff blacksmith.

The student should carefully mark the words and phrases which aceom^pliah thia, i.e., the poetic vocabulary which calls up theae ideaa of beauty,eto.

386. How do you reconcile ' labor with ita hundred hands' with ' holi-day dreasei' ? See 393.

396-8 The Abb4 Raynal, a French writer, (1711-96) published a bookon tiio s-ittlementa and trade of Europeans of the E. and VV. ludiea, andinoluded some account of Canada and Acadia. Hia picture of rural bliasis pr?tty highly colored. He says: " Real misery was wholl) unknown ;every misfortune was relieyed as it were before it could be felt It wasin short a society of brethren, every indiridual of which was willing togive and receive what he thought the common right of mankind." Itmnat h? remembered that the community of goods spoken of in L 808,was one of benevoleaoe and free will, not legal in any sens*.

408 gayest, etc?What figure ?

80 NOW

412. What purpose does a poet senre by using nneommon words

and phrases, e.g., Sabrant,' 'variant,' 'valves of the barndoors'?

-^13. "Tons les Bourgeois de Chartres," was a aong written by thechapel master of Henry IV. (of Navarre).

" Vous connaissex Cyb^le,Qui 8ut fixer le Temps.On la disait fort belle,Mdme dans ses vieox ana.Ohoms?Cette divinity, quoique de]k grand'mira,Avait les yeux donx, le teint frais,Avait meme certains attraitsFermes comme la Terre."

"Le Carillon de Dunkerque," Le., the chimes played on the bells ofDunkirk, was another popular tune to which also words were set.

417-8. By way of emphasis these two lines very fitly close the accountof the festivities following the betrothal.

420. The entrance of the English soldiers upon the scene seems tooabrupt. Would it not have been more in agreement with the nature ofthe circumstances to have brought into the narrative the first sight ofthe vessels, the spreading of the news of their arrival, the thronging ofthe villagers, etc. The fact of their coming, seeing that the after calam-ity is an immediate consequence of it, should have had more prominencethan is given to it by the incidental reference in the blacksmith's speech,(11. 290, et. seq.)

427. casement-?A window made to open and turn on hinges, oftenintroduced into churches, public buildings, etc

431-2 See introduction for the circumstances.

434-6. Note the old fashioned phrase ' natural make and temper,' andthe amplification of tiieidea, characteiistio of proclamations and etherlegal formalities.

442-46. A Vergilian remembrance. Discuss the substitutioo oi ' rain 'for 'sling.*

454, An angry crowd may weU be likened to an angry sea ; but therest of the simile does not strike one as very efifective or happy.

461. chancel?That part of the church where the altar is placed.The door of the chanoel would be the door leading into it from the robingroom or vestry behind.

466. tocsin.?Wliat is meant? Show the appropriateness al tliaword here t

HOTl

81

470. viarils.?Diatinguish the root and derived meanings.474- Note how he moves from general to epecific, first attracting atten-tion, then the eyes, then the ears.

484. Ave Maria.?The " Hail Mary," the first words of an invoca-tion to the Virgin, in the service of the Roman Catholic Chnrch.

485. translated.?In its root meaning?carried beyond or out ofthemselves. Discuss the substitution of ' incense ' for ' ardor.'

492. emblazoned.?What is the literal meaning of this word ?

494. wheaten.?As distinguished from the barley or rye loaf of theirforefathers.

495. tankard.?A large drinking cup or vessel with ? lid, and madeof metal, generally higher than broad.

498. Ambrosia was the food of the gods (of Greece and Rome), asnectar was their drink ; hence whatever ia pleasing to the taste andsmell may poetically be called ambrosial,

499. Ah.?Compare its use and effect here with that in IL 70 and 372.600. What comparison is implied in ' fields of her soul * ? Discuss

the substitution of the words * yet from her gentle heart.*

502, * Wandered.' Hardly a good word here. Why ?

505. Do you consider ? Urged by the weary feet of their children,' anexpressive phrase. Wliy ?

507. What is tiie reference ?

513. A good example of the insertion of a phrase merely to heightenthe effect by conti*ast; ' graves of the dead,' from which no answercould be expected, brings out more effectively the hyperbole 'thegloomier grave of the living.*

514-22. These lines have been admired for their truth to nature. Pointout the words and phrases which justify this opinion. How much wasfact and how much fancy ? Note the calming of Evangeline's mind bythe thunder, which in most would excite further terror. What featurein her character does this disclose 7

525. maids-?Are these of the Beliefontaine household, oris the refer-enoe general?

535. The English soldiers and sailors had assisted in collecting thegoods of the Acadians, and of course manned the boats. At Grand-Prdthe males from 10 years and upwards, were collected and shut up in thechurch until the time of embarkation, to the number of more than 400.

547-52. It ia the privilege and province of the poet to embellish hisstory with such attractive fictions; the unvarnished truth is seldommifficiently readable.

63 NOTBS.

557. * eagerly running.' Remember the Acadian simplicity, fchtstrait they were now in, and their betroth;#!.

570. A poetical exaggeration. As a matter of fact great care was takennot to separate families.

575-6. refluent.?Reminds us of Ps. 114, 3, "The sea saw it and fled."The tide in the Bay of Fundy ebbs as swiftly as it flows.

waifs.?Connected with * waive.' Give the meaning here and exem-plify other meanings.

kelp.?Here used as a variety of seaweed ; properly the alkaline pro-duct of seaweed when burned.

579. leaguer.?German lager, the camp of a besieged army.

gipsy.?What is the more common spelling ? Give the origin of thename.

597. See AeU, 28, 1-10.

600-1. In what does the resemblance eonsistT

605. Benedicite?Bless ye. The first word of a Latin hymn.

614. The Titans were (in Greek and Roman mythology) giants whoftttemped to deprive Saturn of the sovereignty of Heaven, but were sub-dued by the thunderbolts of Jupiter, Saturn's son. Briareus was one ofthem, and had 100 hands.

617. gleamed.?Would 'shone' do as well? Why?

roadstead.?Show the connection with ' ride.'

619 shining?Explain.

621. gleeds.?Hot, burning coals ; connected with ' glow,* now obso-lete. " Wafres piping hot out of the gleede (coal)," ^'anter. Tales, 3379.

The burning of the houses was in accordance with the instructionsgiven to CoL Winslow by the governor, " depriving those who shallescape of all means of shelter or support, by burning their houses, andby destroying everything that may aflord them their means of subsist-ence in the country."

636. yet.?Would 'and' be better ? Why?

639. abroad.?What is the force of this worrJ ? Would ' prone onthe seashore,' be more effective ?

645. Distinguish 'swoon,' 'slumber,' 'trance,' 'faint,' 'unconseious-

652-3. As a matter of fact great numbers did return from their exile,perhaps a majority.

657. The bell is tolled to mark the passing of the soul into the otherworld ; the book, is, of course, the book containing the funeral service.The common phrase, 'bell, book and caudle,' refers to excommunicationfrom the ehurch.

?orn.

PART SEi;OJ^D.

83

S. household gods-?Recalling th? Lareaaiid Penates of the classical mythology.

10. Father of Waters What river is meant ?

12. The bones of the mammoth or mastt^don have been found scatteredin various parts over the U.S. and (^aiiada?the greatest numbers in theSalt Liicks of Kentucky. An excellent specimen has lately been found inthe County of Kent, Ont.

18-20. Note that the poet represents the pathway of life which extendsbefore her, i.e., in the future, as marked by the gravei* of those who haddied in the past.

Explain if possible this discrepancy by reference to the simile in 11,22-3.

25. morning-?In what sense here used?

30. Does 'endeavor' add anything to 'search.'

33. Would it be an improvement to omit she ? Why?

34-5. Notice the beautiful diminuendo in 'rumor,' 'hearsay,' 'in-articulate whisper,' leading up to 'airy hand.'

Mark how the continuance and persistence of the quest is kept up bythe repetition of the words of reference?sometimes?sometimes?some-times?sometimes, then (48), still (64).

40. Coureurs-du-bois.? Bush-rangers, a class of men belonging toCanada under French rule ; produced by the demands of the fur trade:half civilized, consortmg and often intermarrying with the huliaus, andconcerned in their wars. As guides and trappers they played a veryimportant part.

42. Voyageurs.?Properly river ?nd lake boatmen, guides and pilotson water, as the bush-rangers on land.

48. There were two St. Catherines, both alike vowed to virginityConsetjuently * to lir;iid St Catherine's tresses,' means to remainanm.'irried.

&6. "I hold it true, whate'er befall,

Tis better to have ioved and lost.Than never to have loved at all."?Tennymn."loh habe gelebt uud geliebet"?Schiller.

62. perfected-?Note the accent.

64. dirge?A oormption of Lat. dirige, the first word of a L*tiBhymn sung at funerals. Compare ' requiem

B4 iroTBL

66. The common expression 'poor soul,' expressiTe of pity, ifl e8peciall3effective here.

sliard.?Or * sherd,'as in 'potsherd,'a fragment of earthenware.

68. me.?The first mention of the narrator. This invocation tothe mnse seems a little out of place.

76. "The Iroquois gave it the name Ohio, ?.?., " Beautiful River,"and LaSalle, the first European to discover it, preserved the name, sothat very early it was laid down in the maps."

78. Explain the epithet ** golden."

80. raft.?Show if you can the force of the implied comparison.

84. kith.?From cw^A the participle of cuniian, "to know," so thatthe phrase " kith and kin " properly means acqaintances and blood rela-tions.

85. By the spring of 1765 nearly 700 Acadians had arrived at NewOrleans. The existence of a French population in Louisiana attractedthe wandering Acadians, and they were gladly sent by the authoritiesto form settlements in Attakapas and Opelousas. Settlements wereformed by them up even beyond Baton Rouge. Hence the termAcadian Coast, which a portion of the Mississippi river bank still bears.

90. chutes.?A French word meaning a fall. Of frequent uae inU.S. and Canada in the sense of (1) as here, a rapid descent in a river ;(2) a slide in a dam for the passage of logs ; (3) a trough or tube from ahigher to a lower leveL Also written sometimes shtUe and shoot.

91. Cotton-trees.?More commonly cotton-wood, a tree of the poplarkind, common in the S.W. of the U.S.

92. lagoons. ?Properly shallow lakes or inlets of the sea ; here,however, applied to the lake-like expansions of the river, common in thelower parts of the Mississippi and its tributaries.

93. wimpling.?Rippling, originally applied to the folds of avelL

94. plumes-?What is the usual word ?

96. china-trees.?It is probable from the mention of "blossominghedges of roses," (1. 148) that what are meant here are " C^'na-roaaa," avariety of garden roses, natives of China.

99. citron-?A species of lemon-tree.

101. Bayou.?A channel leading from a lake or river.

103. network of steel.?The addition of the words * of steel' doMmore harm by suggesting the possibility of resemblances chat do notexist, than good, by giving the only resembance,?.?., that of ?olor; ' net.work ' alone would have been better.

104. tenebrous.?Sometime* 'teaebriotu,' from L*t. tei^'^i^AU, *taU

MOTm. 85

of darkness/ A word no doubt chosen for the metre and for alliteration,but at the same time well suited to describe the 'cypress.'

107. The herons and the white-breasted pelicans mentioned above,(1. 94) are water birds that frequent low, marshy grounds, and livechiefly by fishing.

109. The owl, loving solitude, or living in deserted places, has beengiven more characters and voices than most other birds, e,g., to hoot, tolaugh, to wail.

Ct Gray's Elegy, "The moping owl doth to the moon complain."

115. compassed.?May mean'understood.' An exceptional use of theword.

116-119. One of his most successful comparisons.

mimosa.?The sensitive plant; properly speaking only certain speciespossess this remarkable property.

hoof-beats of fate.?Perhaps suggested by Bev. 6, 8, ** And I saw,and behold a pale horse, and his name was Death, and Hades followedwith him."

119. attained.?Note the exceptional nse, and exemplify its ordinaryuse.

120. vision.?Where is it defined t124. Explain 'shadowy aisles,'

126. Give the relation of the 'if clause.

128. Give the usual meaning of 'colonnades* and 'corridors,' andexplain to what they are applied here.

129. seal.?Account for this word by reference to U. 107-9.

140. The white crane (Oru8 Americanua) is commonly called from itspeculiar note the ' whooping crane.'

In an article on Louisiana in Scribner's Monthly^ Nov. 1873, EdwardKing, in describing a trip by steamboat down the Mississippi, speaks ofthe * bellowings of the alligators.' We append a few extracts from hisdescription, as showing how closely it agrees with Longfellow's.

?* One should see it in October, when a delicious magic in the atmos-phere transforms the masses of trees and tangled vines and creepers intofantastic semblances of ruined walls and antique tapestries. But at any?eason you would note towering white cypresses, shooting their ghostlytnmks far above the surrounding trees, or half rotten at their bases fallentop foremost into the water. . . . You would note the long festoonsof dead Spanish moss hanging from the high boughs of the red cypress.. . . Vista after vista of cypress-bordered avenues would stretchbefore your vision. You would see the white crane standing at sometrae root, and the owl would now and then cry from a high peroh.

142. The Atchafalaya is the first of the brauches that flo^ from thewest into the Gulf. The lakes are of course, like the lagoons mentionedin 1. 92, mere expansions of the river.

144. lotus.?This name was given by the Greeks to a shrub like plant,two or three feet high, producing a fruit somewhat of the size of a plum,with a round stone in the centre, of mealy consistence, and sweetish in.taste ; much used by the poor as a food in the N. of Africa. The termlotus is also applied to a kind of water lily. The Egyptian lotus, cele-brated in sculpture and story, so common in the Nile and its tributaries,has a large white flower, and rises from two to four feet out of the water.Among the Hindoos also the lotus plays a distinguished part, and variesin color from white to red. With the Chinese it symbolizes femalebeauty, the small feet of their women often being called * golden lilies.'

161. The Wachita river is also called the Ouachita. Owing to the lowand level nature of the country, all these rivers may be said to be con-nected by bayous.

155-8. Another example of the manner in which illustration may bepushed to a ludicrous extent, not to mention the bad taste which takesa Scriptural occurrence of importance, to which to compare so triflinga matter. Point out faults in the simile.

162. The art of the poet in bringing Evangeline and Gabriel so closetogether, and yet unaware of each other's presence, has been both com-mended and found fault with. It seems to us very natural, and sufficientlyprobable to found a poetical treatment upon. The student will remem-ber that the uncommon, provided that it does not transgress possibility,and that it furnishes some emotional consequence, is the Btufl" uponwhich poetry seizes for its materiaL See, however, Wordsworth's posi-tion contra.

180. Why is this conveyance of intelligence from soul to soul, by somesecret psychic force (unexplained as yet), the product of Evangeline'smind alone ? Why not to Gabriel's as well ? Why should there not bemutual apprisal of each other's vicinity ?

172. palmettos.?A species of palm growing farther north than otherAmerican palms, sometimes called the cabbage tree from the terminalbud, which resembles a cabbage, and is used for food. Its wood isvaluable for wharf timber, not being attacked by worms. It varies from40 to 50 feet in height.

174. Oen. 16, 7, "And the Angel of the Lord found Hagar by thvfountain in the wilderness."

178-9. JoBtify or condemn the use of the words 'magic' and 'frietndly.'

NOTB& 87

188-4. Why doea she 'blush' and say to the priest 'to you suchwords have no meaning ' ? Did he understand her, and was his answerin point ?

The reasoning is not good. If, like deep waters, feeling is still, howthen can words be the ' buoy,' to show where the anchor is hidden?

189. illusions.?Distinguish from 'elusion,' 'delusion.'

191. Teche.?A bayou emptying into the Atchafalaya from the west.

193. regain.?Would ' rejoin ' do as well ? Why ?

210. Do you consider 'shook ' a more expressive W(^rd here than themore common term ' poured' ? If so, give your reasons.

211. Since the time of Orpheus, the Thracian poet, who is creditedwith the powers of song mentioned in the text, such hyperbole has be-come the common property of poets.

213. Bacchantes.?These were worshippers of the god Bacchus, whoin Greek mythology presided over the vine and its products. They weregiven to all manner of excess, and their songs and dances and otherpractices often degenerated into extravagant and indecent orgies.

219. Opelousas is one of the great prairie parishes (counties) ofLouisiana. The writer referred to in the note on line !40, says : "Allthe prairies in Western Louisiana are perennially green. . . The

French paid great attention to cattle and sheep husbandry in this sectionof Louisiana early in the last century, and it has been estimated thatmore than 220,000 cattle could annually be reared and transported tomarket from the single prairie of Opelousas. It was not uncommon fora stock-raiser to possess from 30,000 to 40,000 head of cattle."

225. Yule-tide.?The old English term for Christmas time.

226. He very seldom begins a new sentence so near the end ofthe line as here.

230. What difference would it make in the meaning to put a commaafter ' roof' and a semicolon after * supported' t

236-7. Express tlie meaning of "The line . , . trees," in otherwords.

248-9. gaiters.?Coverings of cloth or skin for the legs and ankles,extending from near the knees downward over part of the shoes.

doublet.?A dose fitting vest, from the neck to below the waist

sombrero.?A Spanish word meaning ' shade giTer/ a broad brimmedhat, necessary in hot climates.

260. That is first a ' oloud,' then a ' ihade.'

285. tedloi]LA. - I^ there anything unusual in the way thin xrard imemployed here t

88 N0TB8.

287. trade.?How would it aflFect the meaning to omit ' for' T

296. Olympus.?A mountain in Thessaly ; the residence of the gods,according to the Greek mythology.

303. gossips- ?In its old but now obsolete sense of familiar acquaint-ances or cronies.

305. ci-devant.- This word, whether used intentionally or not, togive a touch of humor, is really a disfigurement.

323. hungry.?Justify this epithet.

327. What improper ellipsis (due to the metre) in this line ?

334. ' Wrathful cloud.' Note the transferred epithet.

341. See part i, 1. 385.

344. Creoles. ?Properly (as here) persons of European descent bom inthe West Indies or Spanish America, but now generally used of personsof any color born within the tropics.

347-9. Note the truth of these lines. 'Gentle,' 'tender,' i.e., produc-ing tender feelings, not indifiference.

352. 'like children.' Longfellow has here well hit off the characterof the French Canadian.

355. Dreamlike.?Point out the resemblance.

365. devious.?The alliteration has probably enticed Longfellow touse this word, the meaning of which in this place is somewhat doubt-ful ; probably it means straying from the paths of duty or right.

366. manifold.?Is this word properly used here ?

367. Carthusian.?The first monastery of this order was founded atChartreux, near Grenoble, in France, 1086. The discipline of the orderIB very rigid?perpetual silence is one of their vows, and the monks areallowed to speak to one another but once a week.

369. Explain '* her heart was more fragrant than the flowers, and yetas heavy with shadows, etc."

376. ' Stars' are 'the thoughts of God in the heavens.' Explain, ifyou can, the propriety and truth of this metaphor.

378. What temple is meant ?

Upharsin.?Refers to the handwriting on the wall of Belshazzw'sbanqueting room, oee Daniel V.. 25.

380. An unfortunate wid obscure line m an otherwise beautiful passage.Note the immediate change of personality from * soul' to 'she.' Does'between . . . fire-flies,'denote cause or mere locality? What isthe meaning ol ' wandered alone ' ?

The above passage 358-393 is an excellent one for paraphrasing.Both teacher and student should remember that paraphrasing it seoc^dd

NOTES. 89

only to original composition in importance, and often beyond it in pointof diflficulty. Very often it furnishes the only real test whether thestudent has fully comprehended a passage. In saying this we do notignore the fact that much of the finest poetry is not suited for paraphras-ing, and that judgment, therefore, is needed in the use of this exercise.396-9. Two or three more of Longfellow's scriptural allusions,Ab the priest is attempting a witticism, we miut not look too closelyinto the correctness of the comparison.

404. Altogether too much hyperbole to be suitable here. The word' blast' is too strong ; fate is oftener represented as slow but ' sure offoot'; Gabriel's journey was not a ' flight' and could not have the alto-gether aimless course of a dead leaf, or much resemblance in any wayto it.

412. ' Took the prairie trail,' as we would say in ordinary language.413-16. Criticise the substitutions, 'lift through snows everlasting,

their lofty and luminous Jieads,' and ' emigrant wagon.'

413. The precise whereabouts of this * desert land' is not very clear,and is fortunately a matter of little consequence. The description 11.417-19 would make it to be in Wyoming Territory, while 1 441 wouldremove it to Western Missouri or Arkansas, where the Ozark moun-tains are to be found.

420. Fontaine-qui-bout. Fountain that boils, i.e., as we say, ' boilingspring.'

sierras.?Why are mountain ranges so called ?

430. Who are meant by ' Ishmael's children,' and why so called ?

423. Discuss the correctness of this comparison, also of that in 1. 425.

433. A striking simile, but the next line weakens and mars the pictxire ;the vulture sails aloft on pinions majestic, while the soul needs stairs.

426. amorphas.?A leguminous order of plants ; bastard indigo.

437-8. ' Taciturn ' is a strange epithet to apply to the bear, as if otheranimals were 'talkative.'

Note that certain words excite the notion of their opposite, and thisopposite should not be an impossible epithet to apply to an object of thesame kind- Silent and noisy may both be applied to animals, but not'taciturn' and 'talkative.'

On the other hand ' anchorite monk' strikes us at an exceedinglyhappy phrase ; and viewed in his character of monk, taciturnity, as wellas solitariness, may be applied to the bear. Give m syaooym for'aaohorite,' and the adjeotlTe oorresponding to 'moak.'

iO voT3a.

roots.?The black bear {ursm Americanus), which i? meant here, iasaid to prefer vegetable food.

439-40. ITiese lines seem a fine ending for the description preceding,equivalent to saying "All these, the animate and the inanimate, themountain, the torrent, the canon and the prairie, the roaming bison, thewild horse, the bear and the wolf, the fierce vultures of the air, and thenot less fierce and implacable sons of the desert, all are alike thecreatures of God, and have not been made in vain."

449. Fata Morgana.?A sort of mirage occasionally seen in the straitsof Messina, and less frequently elsewhere ; it consists in the appearance'in the air over the sea of the objects which are on the neighboring coast.This mirage of terrestrial objects in the sky is not oncommon in the S.W. of U. S.

454-5. The Shawnees are an Indian tribe of the Algonquin familyscattered through the west and south of the U. S.

The Camanches, or rnore commonly Comanches, are a roving tribe ofthe Shoshonee family also found in the south and west. They arenoted as great hunters and warriors.

474. Mowis.?These legends LongfeUow got in Schoolcraft's Indianbooks : the substance of them is here told.

479. weird.?The root is A.S. vn/rd, fate ; pertaining to the world olwitches, who use the incantation {i.e., a magic formula, which they croon,or mutter, or chant) against some one. Though the design of the userof this sorcery was not always evil, yet it was generally ao, hence * theblack art' w^ another of its names.

480. Distinguish phantom, ghost, apparition.

481. That.?Better * who' to keep up the ' personality.*

490. They seem to have camped not in the open prairie, but by astream ; where, in such a country, the timber is found.

494. Subtle. Pronounce. 'Subtile * is another form which has, how-ever, almost dropped out of use.

494-8. Repeating in different and leas apt language the idea of 115-19.

510. Jesuit Mission.?Whatever may be s.ud of the craft, cunningand wiliness of the Jesuits, of their being all things to all men, of theiicasuistry and mental reservations, of their intriguing and restless spirit.of their banishment from many Catholic countries, of the suppressionand revival of their order, it can scarcely be denied with sucooss thatthey have been among the first, if not the very first educators andmissionariea of the world. In the Porta^pesa colonies, {e.g.f ondeiXavier), in China and Japan, (e.^., under Eiooi and Sckall), tho rMralta

?1

)f their missions were really extraordinary. In Northern and CentralAmerica, in Brazil, in Paraguay and Uruguay, in California and in thePhilippines, their zeal was seen, and they proved missionaries of civiliza-tion as well as of religion.

515. rural.?Distiuguiah, with examples, 'rural' and 'rustic'

516. vespers.?Lat. vesper, evening; the evening service of theRoman Catholic Church. Vesper is ako used as a name for the starVenus, when she appears after sunset. \Vhat is, the corresponding termfor the morning service ?

617. SUSUrrilS.?A Latin word meaning a murmur or whisper, a wordformed in imitation of the sound.

521. Why ' from the hands ' ?

527. gourd?Plants allied to the cucumber and pumpkin, with trail-ing stems and fruits of a variety of shapes. The ' bottle-gourd' has ahard outer rind, which, when dry, is used for cups, bottles, etc.

546. Cloisters for mendicant.?Ix)ngfellow's mind was steeped in thelearning of the old world and the past, and his fondness for andfamiliarity with mediaeval literature have more than once led him intoinaccuracy and bad taste.

cloister.?Ib quite inapplicable to crows, as they are noisy and lovecompany ; neither are they mendicant; thievish would be a much morefitting word. What points of resemblance do you see in the comparison ?

547. golden weather ?Show the force of the epithet.

554. compass-flower.?'' The SUphium Laciniatum, or compass plant,is found in the prairies of Michigan and Wisconsin, and to the S. and W.,and ia said to present the edges of the lower leaves due N. and S."

561. asphodels.?Belong to the lily family, {Liliaeeae) and are some-times called King's lances. In the mythology of the Greeks, the mea-dows of asphodel were haunted by the shades of heroes. In Pope'sOdyssey, 24, 13, we read : *In ever flowering meads of asphodel.' Theasphodel of the older Enghsh poets is the daffodil.

nepenthe.?Homer speaks of a magic potion so called, which causedpersons to forget their sorrows.

5d4. wold.?The same as ' weald ;' used in a variety of senses, as awood, an open country, a hiUy district. Here probably the open countryas contrasted with * in wood.'

563-70. Point out the felicities of thought and expression in these lines.

574. gad years?Can this quest of Evangeline's, so long, all alone, insuch a state of country as then existed, without hint of support or woman'scompanionship, be ooasidered at all probable ? Is it in acoordanoe with

92 VORB.

the laws of narrative and descriptive poetry, to contravene the probableand to exhibit the improbable ?

676. tents of grace.?A rendering of the Moravian faaden hutten.i.e.. The assembly place of the United Brethren. This sect, followersof John Huss, were driven from Bohemia, at the beginning of the 18thcentury, and settled in Saxony under the protection of Count Zinzen-dorf, hence often called in Germany Hermhuters. They prefer livingin colonies by themselves They have been very devoted missionaries invarious fields, as in Labrador and at the Cape, in the W. Indies, andeven in Russia and Tartary. In 1880 they had about 100 mission stations,and 350 missionaries.

685. What life is meant, and why is it likened to the morning T

689. Name the stream and the city, and give the meaning of the nameof the city, and of that of the state.

591. Very many streets have the names of trees, as Chestnut, Pine,Locust, Spruce, Walnut, etc., especially those running E. and W.

692. Dryads.?Njmiphs of the woods, (Gr. drOs, an oak), the tutelarydeities of the forest.

594. children of Penn.?The Quakers, for whose benefit and freedomof worship, Penn got his grant from James II.

699. Thee and thou are still freely used in English provincial dialectsby the uneducated classes, not, however, so generally with the familiarityand afifection which characterize the use of du in German and tu inFrench ; oftener with a want of respect, and frequently as a sign of con-tempt. As early as Shakespeare's time, theeing and thouing was a way tobe insolent.

603. upon earth.?What suggestion in these worda? What is therelation of * uncomplaining * ?

605. There are some incongruities in this elaborate comparison. Themaiden had wandered long on the mountains of ecstasy?surrounded bythe mists of delusion; but these had now rolled away ; the sun of(spiritual) enlightenment had arisen and dissipated them ; the dawn ofanother and purposeful existence had * broken over her earthly horizon '(585); the path of life lay * smooth and fair in the distance' across theplain of usefulness and devotion to others, etc.

614. for it was not.?Explain what is meant.

620. no waste. ?Of course not true in fact; no appreciable waste.A very beautiful and perfect comparison.

624. Sisters of Mercy or Charity, at first called the Gray Sisters fronithe oolor of their dress, were recogniaed aa an order by Pope Clement IX.,

about 1650. Latterly they have been imitated in Protestant commaniona.

623-32. This has been called one of the finest passages of the poem.

"Lessing says that a poet writes picturesquely, not when his wordsfurnish maHer for a material painting ; many writers do this whose writ-ing is not picturesque, but when they have the same tffect as a materialpiintiiig, in bringing a sensuous object vividly before the mind."?Coleridge.

Does this passage come under the above definition ? If so, indicatethe details of the picture or pictures as presented to your mental vision.

But imagery, the different parts of which cannot be brought togetherin apace and time, is different from and above the mere picturesque ;such we find in Milton, Spencer, Coleridge, dreamy, fairy-like., unrealmayhap, but still of exceeding vividness.

Note the following touches of a skilful hand :

(i) The fine contrast in the same line of the ' lonely' garret with the'crowded' lane.

(ii) How the repetition in * lonely and wretched,' ' diatresa and want,''disease and sorrow.' expands and keeps alive the impression.

(iii) The repetition and emphasizing of the object of this Sister of Mercyis followed by 'night after night,' and 'day after day,* to denote herzeaL

(iv) The repetition, to keep alive the impression, in 'lonely roof,''garret,' 'high and lonely window.'

(v) The irony probably intended in the phrase ' all was well in thecity.'

633. The year 1793, when the yellow fever prevailed, and was a terriblepestilence in Philadelphia.

633-64. This paragraph is not nearly so good as the previous one. Thephrase ' presaged by wondrous signs,' leads us to expect something por-tentous, but the poet offers us nothing in the least terrifying. Flocks ofwild pigeons in the fall are, or rather were, so common to an Americanas to be no omen. The portent must be, we suppose, in their having* nought but an acorn in their craws.'

636-9. What is your opinion of this simile ? Can you point out anyfaults in it ? For what purposes should similes and other figures ofspeech be used T

640-1. Note the abrupt change in the mode of representing death.

643. almshouse*?"The Philadelphians have identified the oldFriends' almshouse on Walnut street, now no longer standing, as that inwhich Evangeline ministered to Gabriel, and so real appeared the story,

f4 voraa.

that some even reatured to point out the graves of the two lovers. *>

Weatcott's Historic Mansions of Philadelphia.

649. tllOUght. etc.?Whatever credenoe we may place in the hallu-cinations of those on the boundary of the next world, it would seem thatthe poet has here trenched on the improbable. * Gleams,' from theirfrequent fitfulness, and 'splendor,' from its strength, scarcely agree withthe comparatively subdued character of the halo of 1. 652, and reflectionof 1. 653.

663. * The Swedes' church * at Wicaco is still standing, the oldest inthe city of Philadelphia, having been begun in 1698. Wicaco is insidethe city, on the banks of the Delawai-e. Wilson, the ornithologist, wasburied in the churchyard adjoining.

670-3. What do you think of the similes in these Unea ?

674. consoler,?Some one has remarked that Longfellow in his optimis-tic way couldn't have the heart to call death by hard names, and evenhere calls him consoler and healer. Has he, however, expressed a com-mon and natural feeling ?

688. This at least is a common beliet

690. What strikes one at once as marring this comparison, is the factthat the blood besprinkled portal in the case of the Passover meant life,here it meant death.

695. multiplied reverberations.?This must refer to the hallucina-tions of the dying, which we know belong to the sense of hearing ovenoftener than to that of sight.

710. If not looked into too closely this is a fine simile. We cannothelp feeling, however, that Longfellow has not made the most of thisdeath bed scene ; that he lost a fine opuortunity After so many yearsof long search and waiting, most poets, we think, would have keptGabriel alive a little longer, and would have heightened the interest anddrawn out the pathos with a little speech. True love, robbed of passionand its grosser attributes, living still and purified by the prospect of theeternal beyond, is too seldom exhibited by our poets. We feel, too, thatLongfellow could have done this, and would have done it welL

Criticise the appropriateness of this simile.

716. The first warning note of the approaching end of the tale. Notethe effect of the repetitions in 11. 721-4. Shew that the poet has arrangedin an effective order * hearts?brains?hands?feet.'

725. But for the too quick dismissal and slight treatment of the death-bed scene the poet has shown skill at the close. In so short a piece thatooonpies bat two honn in the reading, the memory can reach back even

M

to the verbal constmetion, and therefore this repctitioa of several of theopening lines to recall and deepen their impression is very eflFective,repeating and reasserting as a skilful advocate does, at the end of hisargument, the theme with which he began. Thus in the prelude orintri>ductic)u we have the invocation and lament, then comes the mainrhythm and music of the story itself, then follows the postlude, also alament, which revives and strengthens the picture of the desolation andwrong that form the burden and ijiotif of the poem. This desolationaod wrong and their lastingness are finely brought out by the two con-olnding line?, which are repetitive of IL 5 and 6 of Part L

Notes

1. The original of the Maiden who says to John Alden in Miles Standish. " Why don't you speak for yourself, John!"
2. At Brunswick, Maine
3. The grudgery of the elementary work was done by assistants ; he lectured on the literature, aand heard translations in French, Spanish and Italian.
4. With a slow and noiseless footstep,Comes that messenger divine,Takes the vacant chair beside me,Lays her gentle hand in mine, And she lits and gazes at me.With those deep and tender eyes.?Footsteps of Angela.
5. Four friends with himself called themselves the "Fire of Clubs," and took dinners in his rooms, or elsewhere, at which their own literary ventures and those of of others were discussed.
6. Of the earlier poems, written for the most part as College before he was nineteen he says: " Some have found their way into schools ; others lead a vagabond and precarious existence in the corner of newspapers,' The best is perhaps " The Burial of the Minnisink.
7. Chispa.
8. The prettiest is "Stars of the Summer Night," set to music by many composers byt perhaps best by henry Smart and J. L. Hatton.
9. Thou, too, sail on, 0 ship of State;
   Sail on, O Union, Strong: and great
   -----------------------------------
   We know what Mastor laid thy keel,
   What workmen wrought thy ribe of steel
   Who made each mast, and sail, and rope
   What anvils rang, what hammert boat,
   In what a forge and what a heat
   Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
10. One example from the Peace Pipe will suffice to explain this; it occurs In the address of Mianitoa (the Great Spirit) to his people ; the recurring words are italioised.

    Listen to the words wisdom.
    Listen to the words of warning,
    From the lips of the Great Spirit,
    From the Master of Life who made you.

    I have given you lands to hun it
    I have given you streams to fish in,
    I have given you bear and bison,
    I have given you roe and reindeer,
    I have given you brent and beaver,
    Filled the marshes full of wild fowl,
    Filled therivers full of fishes;
    Why then are you not contented?
    Why then will you hunt each other?
11. From Robertson's Life of Longfellow.
12. The scenes and characters are not imagrlnary, but drawn from the author's experienoe. The "Wayside Inn" was a tavern in Sudbury: its proprietor "the landlord;" the "mucician" was Ole Ball, the noted violinist, etc

Notes

1. Druids. Druids were mysterious sages and priests who lived across Europe during the Iron Age.
2. Acadia. Acadia was the name of a French colony in what is now Nova Scotia. 
3. Grand-Pré. Means "large meadow" in French. A Canadian town in Nova Scotia, known for its violent history concerning Acadians.
4. Basin of Minas. An inlet of Nova Scotia. Known for its remarkably high tides.
5. Blomidon. Both a town and a provincial park in Nova Scotia.
6. Angelus. A bell that signaled people to prayer.
7. Hyssop. A small shrub or twig used in certain Catholic ceremonies.
8. Jacob. In the book of Genesis in the Old Testament of the Bible, Jacob is the son of Isaac and Rebekkah. He is known for having wrestled with an angel.
9. Loup-garou. French for “were-wolf.”
10. Draught-board A checker board. “Draughts” is another name for “Checkers.”
11. Jocund. Delighted.
12. Greensward. Ground with grass on it.
13. Tous les Bourgeois de Chartres, and Le Carillon de Dunkerque. Well known French folk songs of the time period.
14. Sonorous. Of or producing a deep sound.
15. Clement. Mild and merciful.
16. Tocsin. An alarm.
17. Coureur de bois. A French Canadian woodsman or Metis who traded with Indians for furs.
18. Ladder of Jacob. A biblical reference to the ladder Jacob built to climb to heaven.
19. Adayes. An old Spanish town west of Natchitoches, LA.
20. Carthusian. A member of an ascetic contemplative religious order founded by St. Bruno in 1084.
21. Wigwam. Any dwelling of the North American Indians; usually made with bark, rushes, or skins spread over a set of arched poles lashed together.
22. Asphodel flower. A lily flower.

Text prepared by:

• Gabrielle Kirchem
• Kyle Rachal

Spring Quarter 2021:

• Brittany Taylor
• Arabella Touchstone
• Thien Vu

Source

Cable, George Washington. "Posson Jone'" and P?re Rapha?l: With a New Word Setting Forth How and Why the Two Tales Are One. Illus. Stanley M. Arthurs. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909. Google Books. Web. 27 Feb. 2012. <http://books. google.com/books?id=bzhLAAAAIAAJ>.

L’Anthologie  Louisianaise