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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 mam

moth.

Friends they sought and homes; and many, despairing, heartbroken,

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 church

yards.

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 aban

doned,

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 endeavour; Sometimes in church-yards 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!" said they; "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,

cannot!

"I

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."
And 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 re-
freshment;

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 ship-
wrecked

Nation, scattered along the coast, now floating together,
Round by the bonds of a common belief and a common mis-

fortune;

Men and women and children, who, guided by hope or by hearsay,

Sought for their kith and their kin among the few-acred farmers On the Acadian coast, and the prairies of fair Opelousas.

With them Evangeline went, and her guide, the Father Felician.

Onward o'er sunken sands, through a wilderness sombre with forests,

Day after day they glided adown the turbulent river;

Night after night, by their blazing fires, encamped on its

borders.

Now through rushing chutes, among green islands, where plumelike

Cotton-trees nodded their shadowy crests, they swept with the current,

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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.

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