THOU Comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain, Yet in thy heart what human sympathies, What soft compassion glows, as in the skies The tender stars their clouded lamps relume! Methinks I see thee stand, with pallid cheeks, By Fra Hilario in his diocese, As up the convent-walls, in golden streaks, With banners, by great gales incessant | The ascending sunbeams mark the day's fanned, decrease; IN the long, sleepless watches of the night, A gentle face the face of one long dead Looks at me from the wall, where round its head The night-lamp casts a halo of pale Here in this room she died; and soul light. more white Never through martyrdom of fire was led To its repose; nor can in books be read The legend of a life more benedight. There is a mountain in the distant West That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines Displays a cross of snow upon its side. Such is the cross I wear upon my breast These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes And seasons, changeless since the day she died. July 10, 1879. O maiden fair! O maiden fair! how So love in our hearts shall grow mighty alone The nightingale, the nightingale, thou In a desolate land where the sun is scarce tak'st for thine example! So long as summer laughs she sings, But in the autumn spreads her wings. The nightingale, the nightingale, thou tak'st for thine example! The meadow brook, the meadow brook, is mirror of thy falsehood! It flows so long as falls the rain, In drought its springs soon dry again. The meadow brook, the meadow brook, is mirror of thy falsehood! known, It is this, O my Annie, my heart's | And the Saviour speaks in mildness: sweetest rest, That makes of us twain but one soul in one breast. "Blest be thou of all the good! Bear, as token of this moment, Marks of blood and holy rood!" This turns to a heaven the hut where we And that bird is called the crossbill; to a hell. Songs, like legends, strange to hear. Song sinks into silence, The story is told, The windows are darkened, The hearth-stone is cold. Darker and darker The black shadows fall; EVANGELINE. A TALE OF ACADIE. THIS is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms. 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, PART THE FIRST. I. In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas, |