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THOU Comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain,

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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,

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decrease;

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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.

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O maiden fair! O maiden fair! how So love in our hearts shall grow mighty

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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!

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known,

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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;
dwell;
Covered all with blood so clear,
While wrangling soon changes a home In the groves of pine it singeth

to a hell.

Songs, like legends, strange to hear.

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Song sinks into silence,

The story is told,

The windows are darkened,

The hearth-stone is cold.

Darker and darker

The black shadows fall;
Sleep and oblivion
Reign over all.

EVANGELINE.

A TALE OF ACADIE.

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.

PART THE FIRST.

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 hemlock,

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