arm-chair, in an undress._ DOLORES _watching her_.
_Dol._ She sleeps at last!
[_Opens the window and listens._]
All silent in the street,
And in the garden. Hark!
_Pre._ [_in her sleep_]. I must go hence!
Give me my cloak!
_Dol._ He comes! I hear his footsteps!
_Pre._ Go tell them that I cannot dance to-night;
I am too ill! Look at me! See the fever
That burns upon my cheek! I must go hence,
I am too weak to dance.
[_Signal from the garden._]
_Dol._ [_from the window_]. Who’s there?
_Voice_ [_from below_]. A friend.
_Dol._ I will undo the door. Wait till I come.
_Pre._ I must go hence. I pray you do not harm me!
Shame! shame! to treat a feeble woman thus!
Be you but kind, I will do all things for you.
I’m ready now,—give me my castanets.
Where is Victorian? Oh, those hateful lamps!
They glare upon me like an evil eye.[27]
I cannot stay. Hark! how they mock at me!
They hiss at me like serpents! Save me! save me!
[_She wakes._]
How late is it, Dolores?
_Dol._ It is midnight.
_Pre._ We must be patient. Smooth this pillow for me.
[_She sleeps again. Noise from the garden, and voices._]
_Voice._ Muera!
_Another Voice._ O villains! villains!
_Lara._ So! have at you!
_Voice._ Take that!
_Lara._ O, I am wounded!
_Dol._ [_shutting the window_]. Jesu Maria!
[27] See Appendix.
ACT III.
SCENE I.—_A cross-road through a wood. In the background a distant
village spire._ VICTORIAN _and_ HYPOLITO, _as travelling students, with
guitars, sitting under the trees_. HYPOLITO _plays and sings_.
SONG.
Ah, Love!
Perjured, false, treacherous Love!
Enemy
Of all that mankind may not rue!
Most untrue
To him who keeps most faith with thee.
Woe is me!
The falcon has the eyes of the dove.
Ah! Love!
Perjured, false, treacherous Love!
_Vict._ Yes, Love is ever busy with his shuttle,
Is ever weaving into life’s dull warp
Bright, gorgeous flowers and scenes Arcadian;
Hanging our gloomy prison-house about
With tapestries, that make its walls dilate
In never-ending vistas of delight.
_Hyp._ Thinking to walk in those Arcadian pastures,
Thou hast run thy noble head against the wall.
SONG [_continued_].
Thy deceits
Give us clearly to comprehend,
Whither tend
All thy pleasures, all thy sweets!
They are cheats,
Thorns below and flowers above.
Ah, Love!
Perjured, false, treacherous Love!
_Vict._ A very pretty song. I thank thee for it.
_Hyp._ It suits thy case.
_Vict._ Indeed, I think it does.
What wise man wrote it?
_Hyp._ Lopez Maldonado.
_Vict._ In truth, a pretty song.
_Hyp._ With much truth in it.
I hope thou wilt profit by it; and in earnest
Try to forget this lady of thy love.
_Vict._ I will forget her! All dear recollections
Pressed in my heart, like flowers within a book,
Shall be torn out, and scattered to the winds!
I will forget her! But perhaps hereafter,
When she shall learn how heartless is the world,
A voice within her will repeat my name,
And she will say, “He was indeed my friend!”
O, would I were a soldier, not a scholar,
That the loud march, the deafening beat of drums,
The shattering blast of the brass-throated trumpet,
The din of arms, the onslaught and the storm,
And a swift death, might make me deaf for ever
To the upbraidings of this foolish heart!
_Hyp._ Then let that foolish heart upbraid no more:
To conquer love, one need but will to conquer.
_Vict._ Yet, good Hypolito, it is in vain
I throw into Oblivion’s sea the sword
That pierces me; for, like Excalibar,
With gemmed and flashing hilt, it will not sink.
There rises from below a hand that grasps it,
And waves it in the air; and wailing voices
Are heard along the shore.
_Hyp._ And yet at last
Down sank Excalibar to rise no more.
This is not well. In truth, it vexes me.
Instead of whistling to the steeds of Time,
To make them jog on merrily with life’s burden,
Like a dead weight thou hangest on the wheels,
Thou art too young, too full of lusty health
To talk of dying.
_Vict._ Yet I fain would die!
To go through life, unloving and unloved;
To feel that thirst and hunger of the soul
We cannot still; that longing, that wild impulse,
And struggle after something we have not
And cannot have; the effort to be strong;
And, like the Spartan boy, to smile, and smile,
While secret wounds do bleed beneath our cloaks;
All this the dead feel not,—the dead alone!
Would I were with them!
_Hyp._ We shall all be soon.
_Vict._ It cannot be too soon; for I am weary
Of the bewildering masquerade of Life,
Where strangers walk as friends, and friends as strangers;
Where whispers overheard betray false hearts;
And through the mazes of the crowd we chase
Some form of loveliness, that smiles, and beckons,
And cheats us with fair words, only to leave us
A mockery and a jest; maddened,—confused,—
Not knowing friend from foe.
_Hyp._ Why seek to know?
Enjoy the merry shrove-tide of thy youth!
Take each fair mask for what it gives itself,
Nor strive to look beneath it.
_Vict._ I confess,
That were the wiser part. But hope no longer
Comforts my soul. I am a wretched man,
Much like a poor and shipwrecked mariner,
Who, struggling to climb up into the boat,
Has both his bruised and bleeding hands cut off,
And sinks again into the weltering sea,
Helpless and hopeless!
_Hyp._ Yet thou shalt not perish.
The strength of thine own arm is thy salvation.
Above thy head, through rifted clouds, there shines
A glorious star. Be patient. Trust thy star!
[_Sound of a village-bell in the distance._]
_Vict._ Ave Maria! I hear the sacristan
Ringing the chimes from yonder village belfry!
A solemn sound, that echoes far and wide
Over the red roofs of the cottages,
And bids the labouring hind a-field, the shepherd
Guarding his flock, the lonely muleteer,
And all the crowd in village streets, stand still,
And breathe a prayer unto the blessed Virgin!
_Hyp._ Amen! amen! Not half a league from hence
The village lies.
_Vict._ This path will lead us to it,
Over the wheat fields, where the shadows sail
Across the running sea, now green, now blue,
And, like an idle mariner on the main,
Whistles the quail. Come, let us hasten on. [_Exeunt._
SCENE II.—_Public square in the village of Guadarrama. The Ave Maria
still tolling. A crowd of villagers, with their hats in their hands, as
if in prayer. In front, a group of Gipsies. The bell rings a merrier
peal. A Gipsy dance. Enter_ PANCHO, _followed by_ PEDRO CRESPO.
_Pan._ Make room, ye vagabonds and Gipsy thieves!
Make room for the Alcalde and for me!
_Cres._ Keep silence all! I have an edict here
From our most gracious lord, the King of Spain,
Jerusalem, and the Canary Islands,
Which I shall publish in the market-place.
Open your ears and listen!
[_Enter the_ PADRE CURA _at the door of his
cottage_.]
Padre Cura,
Good day! and, pray you, hear this edict read.
_Padre._ Good day, and God be with you. Pray, what is it?
_Cres._ An act of banishment against the Gipsies!
[_Agitation and murmurs in the crowd._]
_Pan._ Silence!
_Cres._ [_reads_]. “I hereby order and command
That the Egyptian and Chaldean strangers,
Known by the name of Gipsies, shall henceforth
Be banished from the realm, as vagabonds
And beggars; and if, after seventy days,
Any be found within our kingdom’s bounds,
They shall receive a hundred lashes each;
The second time, shall have their ears cut off;
The third, be slaves for life to him who takes them,
Or burnt as heretics. Signed, I, the King.”
Vile miscreants and creatures unbaptized!
You hear the law! Obey and disappear!
_Pan._ And if in seventy days you are not gone,
Dead or alive I make you all my slaves.
[_The Gipsies go out in confusion, showing signs of fear
and discontent._ PANCHO _follows_.]
_Padre._ A righteous law! A very righteous law!
Pray you, sit down.
_Cres._ I thank you heartily.
[_They seat themselves on a bench at the_
PADRE CURA’S _door. Sound of guitars heard at a
distance, approaching during the dialogue which follows._]
A very righteous judgment, as you say.
Now tell me, Padre Cura,—you know all things,—
How came these Gipsies into Spain?
_Padre._ Why, look you;
They came with Hercules from Palestine,
And hence are thieves and vagrants, Sir Alcalde,
As the Simoniacs from Simon Magus.
And, look you, as Fray Jayme Bleda says,
There are a hundred marks to prove a Moor
Is not a Christian, so ’tis with the Gipsies.
They never marry, never go to mass,
Never baptize their children, nor keep Lent,
Nor see the inside of a church,—nor—nor——
_Cres._ Good reasons, good, substantial reasons, all!
No matter for the other ninety-five.
They should be burnt, I see it plain enough,—
They should be burnt.
[_Enter_ VICTORIAN _and_ HYPOLITO
_playing_.]
_Padre._ And pray, whom have we here?
_Cres._ More vagrants! By Saint Lazarus, more vagrants!
_Hyp._ Good evening, gentlemen! Is this Guadarrama?
_Padre._ Yes, Guadarrama, and good evening to you.
_Hyp._ We seek the Padre Cura of the village;
And, judging from your dress and reverend mien,
You must be he.
_Padre._ I am. Pray, what’s your pleasure?
_Hyp._ We are poor students, travelling in vacation.
You know this mark?
[_Touching the wooden spoon in his hat-band._]
_Padre_ [_joyfully_]. Ay, know it, and have worn it.
_Cres._ [_aside_]. Soup-eaters! by the mass!
The worst of vagrants!
And there’s no law against them. Sir, your servant.
[_Exit._
_Padre._ Your servant, Pedro Crespo.
_Hyp._ Padre Cura,
From the first moment I beheld your face,
I said within myself, “This is the man!”
There is a certain something in your looks,
A certain scholar-like and studious something,—
You understand,—which cannot be mistaken;
Which marks you as a very learned man,
In fine, as one of us.
_Vict._ [_aside_]. What impudence!
_Hyp._ As we approached, I said to my companion,
“That is the Padre Cura; mark my words!”
Meaning your Grace. “The other man,” said I,
“Who sits so awkwardly upon the bench,
Must be the sacristan.”
_Padre._ Ah! said you so?
Why, that was Pedro Crespo, the alcalde!
_Hyp._ Indeed! you much astonish me! His air
Was not so full of dignity and grace
As an alcalde’s should be.
_Padre._ That is true.
He is out of humour with some vagrant Gipsies,
Who have their camp here in the neighbourhood.
There is nothing so undignified as anger.
_Hyp._ The Padre Cura will excuse our boldness,
If, from his well-known hospitality,
We crave a lodging for the night.
_Padre._ I pray you!
You do me honour! I am but too happy
To have such guests beneath my humble roof.
It is not often that I have occasion
To speak with scholars; and _Emollit mores,
Nec sinit esse feros_, Cicero says.
_Hyp._ ’Tis Ovid, is it not?
_Padre._ No, Cicero.
_Hyp._ Your Grace is right. You are the better scholar.
Now what a dunce was I to think it Ovid!
But hang me if it is not! (_aside_).
_Padre._ Pass this way.
He was a very great man, was Cicero!
Pray you, go in, go in! no ceremony. [_Exeunt._
SCENE III.—_A room in the_ PADRE CURA’S _house. Enter the_ PADRE _and_
HYPOLITO.
_Padre._ So then, Señor, you come from Alcalá,
I am glad to hear it. It was there I studied.
_Hyp._ And left behind an honoured name, no doubt.
How may I call your Grace?
_Padre._ Gerónimo
De Santillana, at your Honour’s service.
_Hyp._ Descended from the Marquis Santillana?
From the distinguished poet?
_Padre._ From the Marquis,
Not from the poet.
_Hyp._ Why, they were the same.
Let me embrace you! O some lucky star
Has brought me hither! Yet once more!—once more!
Your name is ever green in Alcalá,
And our professor, when we are unruly,
Will shake his hoary head, and say, “Alas!
It was not so in Santillana’s time!”
_Padre._ I did not think my name remembered there.
_Hyp._ More than remembered; it is idolized.
_Padre._ Of what professor speak you?
_Hyp._ Timoneda.
_Padre._ I don’t remember any Timoneda.
_Hyp._ A grave and sombre man, whose beetling brow
O’erhangs the rushing current of his speech
As rocks o’er rivers hang. Have you forgotten?
_Padre_. Indeed, I have. O those were pleasant days,—
Those college days! I ne’er shall see the like!
I had not buried then so many hopes!
I had not buried then so many friends!
I’ve turned my back on what was then before me;
And the bright faces of my young companions
Are wrinkled like my own, or are no more.
Do you remember Cueva?
_Hyp_. Cueva? Cueva?
_Padre_. Fool that I am! He was before your time.
You’re a mere boy, and I am an old man.
_Hyp._ I should not like to try my strength with you.
Padre. Well, well. But I forget; you must be hungry.
Martina! ho! Martina! ’Tis my niece.
[_Enter_ MARTINA.]
_Hyp._ You may be proud of such a niece as that.
I wish I had a niece. _Emollit mores._ [_Aside._
He was a very great man, was Cicero!
Your servant, fair Martina.
_Mart_. Servant, sir.
_Padre_. This gentleman is hungry. See thou to it.
Let us have supper.
_Mart_. ’Twill be ready soon.
_Padre_. And bring a bottle of my Val-de-Peñas
Out of the cellar. Stay; I’ll go myself.
Pray you, Señor, excuse me. [_Exit._
_Hyp._ Hist! Martina!
One word with you. Bless me! what handsome eyes!
To-day there have been Gipsies in the village.
Is it not so?
_Mart._ There have been Gipsies here.
_Hyp._ Yes, and they told your fortune.
_Mart_. [_embarrassed_]. Told my fortune?
_Hyp_. Yes, yes; I know they did. Give me your hand.
I’ll tell you what they said. They said,—they said,
The shepherd boy that loved you was a clown,
And him you should not marry. Was it not?
_Mart_. [_surprised_]. How know you that?
_Hyp_. O, I know more than that.
What a soft, little hand! And then they said,
A cavalier from court, handsome, and tall,
And rich, should come one day to marry you,
And you should be a lady. Was it not?
He has arrived, the handsome cavalier.
[_Tries to kiss her. She runs off. Enter_ VICTORIAN
_with a letter_.]
_Vict_. The muleteer has come.
_Hyp._ So soon?
_Vict._ I found him
Sitting at supper by the tavern door,
And, from a pitcher that he held aloft
His whole arm’s length, drinking the blood-red wine.
_Hyp._ What news from Court?
_Vict._ He brought this letter only. [_Reads._
O cursed perfidy! Why did I let
That lying tongue deceive me! Preciosa,
Sweet Preciosa! how art thou avenged!
_Hyp._ What news is this, that makes thy cheek turn pale,
And thy hand tremble?
_Vict._ O, most infamous!
The Count of Lara is a worthless villain!
_Hyp._ That is no news, forsooth.
_Vict._ He strove in vain
To steal from me the jewel of my soul,
The love of Preciosa. Not succeeding,
He swore to be revenged; and set on foot
A plot to ruin her, which has succeeded.
She has been hissed and hooted from the stage,
Her reputation stained by slanderous lies
Too foul to speak of; and, once more a beggar,
She roams a wanderer over God’s green earth,
Housing with Gipsies!
_Hyp._ To renew again
The Age of Gold, and make the shepherd swains
Desperate with love, like Gaspar Gil’s Diana.
Redit et Virgo!
_Vict._ Dear Hypolito,
How have I wronged that meek, confiding heart!
I will go seek for her; and with my tears
Wash out the wrong I’ve done her!
_Hyp._ O beware!
Act not that folly o’er again.
_Vict._ Ay, folly,
Delusion, madness, call it what thou wilt,
I will confess my weakness,—I still love her!
Still fondly love her!
[_Enter the_ PADRE CURA.]
_Hyp._ Tell us, Padre Cura,
Who are these Gipsies in the neighbourhood?
_Padre._ Beltran Cruzado and his crew.
_Vict._ Kind Heaven,
I thank thee! She is found! is found again!
_Hyp._ And have they with them a pale, beautiful girl,
Called Preciosa?
_Padre._ Ay, a pretty girl.
The gentleman seems moved.
_Hyp._ Yes, moved with hunger,
He is half-famished with this long day’s journey.
_Padre._ Then, pray you, come this way. The supper waits.
[_Exeunt._
SCENE IV.—_A post-house on the road to Segovia, not far from the
village of Guadarrama. Enter_ CHISPA, _cracking a whip, and singing the
cachucha_.]
_Chis._ Halloo! Don Fulano! Let us have horses, and quickly. Alas, poor
Chispa! what a dog’s life dost thou lead! I thought, when I left my old
master Victorian, the student, to serve my new master, Don Carlos, the
gentleman, that I, too, should lead the life of a gentleman; should go
to bed early, and get up late. For when the abbot plays cards, what can
you expect of the friars? But, in running away from the thunder, I have
run into the lightning. Here I am in hot chase after my master and his
Gipsy girl. And a good beginning of the week it is, as he said who was
hanged on Monday morning.
[_Enter_ DON CARLOS.]
CARLOS. Are not the horses ready yet?
CHIS. I should think not, for the hostler seems to be asleep. Ho!
within there! Horses! horses! horses! [_He knocks at the gate with his
whip, and enter_ MOSQUITO, _putting on his jacket_.]
_Mos._ Pray, have a little patience. I’m not a musket.
_Chis._ Health and pistareens! I’m glad to see you come on dancing,
padre! Pray, what’s the news?
_Mos._ You cannot have fresh horses; because there are none.
_Chis._ Cachiporra! Throw that bone to another dog. Do I look like your
aunt?
_Mos._ No; she has a beard.
_Chis._ Go to! Go to!
_Mos._ Are you from Madrid?
_Chis._ Yes; and going to Estramadura. Get us horses.
_Mos._ What’s the news at Court?
_Chis._ Why, the latest news is, that I am going to set up a coach, and
I have already bought the whip.
[_Strikes him round the legs._]
_Mos._ Oh! oh! you hurt me!
_Carlos._ Enough of this folly. Let us have horses. [_Gives money to_
MOSQUITO.] It is almost dark; and we are in haste. But tell me, has a
band of Gipsies passed this way of late?
_Mos._ Yes; and they are still in the neighbourhood.
_Carlos._ And where?
_Mos._ Across the fields yonder, in the woods near Guadarrama.
[_Exit._
_Carlos._ Now this is lucky. We will visit the Gipsy camp.
_Chis._ Are you not afraid of the evil eye? Have you a stag’s horn with
you?
_Carlos._ Fear not. We will pass the night at the village.
_Chis._ And sleep like the Squires of Hernan Daza, nine under one
blanket.
_Carlos._ I hope we may find the Preciosa among them.
_Chis._ Among the Squires?
_Carlos._ No; among the Gipsies, blockhead!
_Chis._ I hope we may; for we are giving ourselves trouble enough on
her account. Don’t you think so? However, there is no catching trout
without wetting one’s trousers. Yonder come the horses. [_Exeunt._
SCENE V.—_The Gipsy camp in the forest. Night. Gipsies working at a
forge. Others playing cards by the fire-light._
GIPSIES [_at the forge sing_].
On the top of a mountain I stand,
With a crown of red gold in my hand,
Wild Moors come trooping over the lea,
O how from their fury shall I flee, flee, flee?
O how from their fury shall I flee?
_1st Gipsy_ [_playing_]. Down with your John-Dorados,[28] my pigeon.
Down with your John-Dorados, and let us make an end.
GIPSIES [_at the forge sing_].
Loud sang the Spanish cavalier,
And thus his ditty ran:
God send the Gipsy lassie here,
And not the Gipsy man.
[28] The Gipsy words in this scene may be thus interpreted:—
_John-Dorados_, pieces of gold.
_Pigeon_, a simpleton.
_In your morocco_, stripped.
_Doves_, sheets.
_Moon_, a shirt.
_Chirelin_, a thief.
_Murcigalleros_, those who steal at nightfall.
_Rastilleros_, footpads.
_Hermit_, highway robber.
_Planets_, candles.
_Commandments_, the fingers.
_Saint Martin asleep_, to rob a person asleep.
_Lanterns_, eyes.
_Goblin_, police officer.
_Papagayo_, a spy.
_Vineyards and Dancing John_, to take flight.
_1st Gipsy_ [_playing_]. There you are in your morocco.
_2d Gipsy._ One more game. The Alcalde’s doves against the Padre Cura’s
new moon.
_1st Gipsy._ Have at you, Chirelin.
GIPSIES [_at the forge sing_].
At midnight, when the moon began
To show her silver flame,
There came to him no Gipsy man,
The Gipsy lassie came.
[_Enter_ BELTRAN CRUZADO.]
_Cruz._ Come hither, Murcigalleros and Rastilleros; leave work, leave
play; listen to your orders for the night. [_Speaking to the right._]
You will get you to the village, mark you, by the stone cross.
_Gipsies._ Ay!
_Cruz._ [_to the left_]. And you, by the pole with the hermit’s head
upon it.
_Gipsies._ Ay!
_Cruz._ As soon as you see the planets are out, in with you, and be
busy with the ten commandments, under the sly, and Saint Martin asleep.
D’ye hear?
_Gipsies._ Ay!
_Cruz._ Keep your lanterns open, and, if you see a goblin or a
papagayo, take to your trampers. “Vineyards and Dancing John” is the
word. Am I comprehended?
_Gipsies._ Ay! ay!
_Cruz._ Away, then!
[_Exeunt severally._ CRUZADO _walks up the stage and disappears among
the trees. Enter_ PRECIOSA.]
_Pre._ How strangely gleams through the gigantic trees
The red light of the forge! Wild, beckoning shadows
Stalk through the forest, ever and anon
Rising and bending with the flickering flame,
Then flitting into darkness! So within me
Strange hopes and fears do beckon to each other,
My brightest hopes giving dark fears a being
As the light does the shadow. Woe is me!
How still it is about me, and how lonely!
[BARTOLOMÉ _rushes in_.]
_Bart._ Ho! Preciosa!
_Pre._ O, Bartolomé!
Thou here?
_Bart._ Lo! I am here.
_Pre._ Whence comest thou?
_Bart._ From the rough ridges of the wild Sierra,
From caverns in the rocks, from hunger, thirst,
And fever! Like a wild wolf to the sheepfold,
Come I for thee, my lamb.
_Pre._ O touch me not!
The Count of Lara’s blood is on thy hands!
The Count of Lara’s curse is on thy soul!
Do not come near me! Pray, begone from here!
Thou art in danger! They have set a price
Upon thy head!
_Bart._ Ay, and I’ve wandered long
Among the mountains; and for many days
Have seen no human face, save the rough swine-herd’s.
The wind and rain have been my sole companions.
I shouted to them from the rocks thy name,
And the loud echo sent it back to me,
Till I grew mad. I could not stay from thee,
And I am here! Betray me, if thou wilt.
_Pre._ Betray thee? I betray thee?
_Bart._ Preciosa!
I come for thee! for thee I thus brave death!
Fly with me o’er the borders of this realm!
Fly with me!
_Pre._ Speak of that no more. I cannot.
I am thine no longer.
_Bart._ O, recall the time
When we were children! how we played together,
How we grew up together; how we plighted
Our hearts unto each other, even in childhood!
Fulfil thy promise, for the hour has come.
I am hunted from the kingdom, like a wolf!
Fulfil thy promise.
_Pre._ ’Twas my father’s promise,
Not mine. I never gave my heart to thee,
Nor promised thee my hand!
_Bart._ False tongue of woman!
And heart more false!
_Pre._ Nay, listen unto me.
I will speak frankly. I have never loved thee;
I cannot love thee. This is not my fault,
It is my destiny. Thou art a man
Restless and violent. What wouldst thou with me,
A feeble girl, who have not long to live,
Whose heart is broken? Seek another wife,
Better than I, and fairer; and let not
Thy rash and headlong moods estrange her from thee.
Thou art unhappy in this hopeless passion.
I never sought thy love; never did aught
To make thee love me. Yet I pity thee,
And most of all I pity thy wild heart,
That hurries thee to crimes and deeds of blood.
Beware, beware of that.
_Bart._ For thy dear sake,
I will be gentle. Thou shalt teach me patience.
_Pre._ Then take this farewell, and depart in peace.
Thou must not linger here.
_Bart._ Come, come with me.
_Pre._ Hark! I hear footsteps.
_Bart._ I entreat thee, come!
_Pre._ Away! It is in vain.
_Bart._ Wilt thou not come?
_Pre._ Never!
_Bart._ Then woe, eternal woe, upon thee.
Thou shalt not be another’s. Thou shalt die. [_Exit._
_Pre._ All holy angels keep me in this hour!
Spirit of her who bore me, look upon me!
Mother of God, the glorified, protect me!
Christ and the saints, be merciful unto me!
Yet why should I fear death? What is it to die?
To leave all disappointment, care, and sorrow,
To leave all falsehood, treachery, and unkindness,
All ignominy, suffering, and despair,
And be at rest for ever! O, dull heart,
Be of good cheer! When thou shalt cease to beat,
Then shalt thou cease to suffer and complain!
[_Enter_ VICTORIAN _and_ HYPOLITO
_behind_.]
_Vict._ ’Tis she! Behold, how beautiful she stands
Under the tent-like trees!
_Hyp._ A woodland nymph!
_Vict._ I pray thee, stand aside. Leave me.
_Hyp._ Be wary.
Do not betray thyself too soon.
_Vict._ [_disguising his voice_]. Hist! Gipsy!
_Pre._ [_aside, with emotion_].
That voice! that voice from heaven! O speak again!
Who is it calls?
_Vict._ A friend.
_Pre._ [_aside_]. ’Tis he! ’Tis he!
I thank thee, Heaven, that thou hast heard my prayer,
And sent me this protector! Now be strong,
Be strong, my heart! I must dissemble here.
False friend or true?
_Vict._ A true friend to the true.
Fear not; come hither. So, can you tell fortunes?
_Pre._ Not in the dark. Come nearer to the fire.
Give me your hand. It is not crossed, I see.
_Vict._ [_putting a piece of gold into her hand_]. There is the cross.
_Pre._ Is’t silver?
_Vict._ No, ’tis gold.
_Pre._ There’s a fair lady at the Court, who loves you,
And for yourself alone.
_Vict._ Fie! the old story!
Tell me a better fortune for my money;
Not this old woman’s tale!
_Pre._ You are passionate;
And this same passionate humour in your blood
Has marred your fortune. Yes; I see it now;
The line of life is crossed by many marks.
Shame! shame! O you have wronged the maid who loved you!
How could you do it?
_Vict._ I never loved a maid;
For she I loved was then a maid no more.
_Pre._ How know you that?
_Vict._ A little bird in the air
Whispered the secret.
_Pre._ There, take back your gold.
Your hand is cold, like a deceiver’s hand!
There is no blessing in its charity!
Make her your wife, for you have been abused;
And you shall mend your fortunes, mending hers.
_Vict._ [_aside_]. How like an angel’s speaks the tongue of woman,
When pleading in another’s cause her own——
That is a pretty ring upon your finger.
Pray give it me. [_Tries to take the ring._]
_Pre._ No; never from my hand
Shall that be taken!
_Vict._ Why, ’tis but a ring.
I’ll give it back to you; or, if I keep it,
Will give you gold to buy you twenty such.
_Pre._ Why would you have this ring?
_Vict._ A traveller’s fancy,
A whim, and nothing more. I would fain keep it
As a memento of the Gipsy camp
In Guadarrama, and the fortune-teller
Who sent me back to wed a widowed maid.
Pray, let me have the ring.
_Pre._ No, never! never!
I will not part with it, even when I die;
But bid my nurse fold my pale fingers thus,
That it may not fall from them. ’Tis a token
Of a beloved friend, who is no more.
_Vict._ How? dead?
_Pre._ Yes; dead to me; and worse than dead.
He is estranged! And yet I keep this ring.
I will rise with it from my grave hereafter,
To prove to him that I was never false.
_Vict._ [_aside_]. Be still, my swelling heart! one moment, still!
Why, ’tis the folly of a love-sick girl.
Come, give it me, or I will say ’tis mine,
And that you stole it.
_Pre._ O, you will not dare
To utter such a fiendish lie!
_Vict._ Not dare?
Look in my face, and say if there is aught
I have not dared, I would not dare for thee!
[_She rushes into his arms._]
_Pre._ ’Tis thou! ’tis thou! Yes; yes; my heart’s elected!
My dearest-dear Victorian! my soul’s heaven!
Where hast thou been so long? Why didst thou leave me?
_Vict._ Ask me not now, my dearest Preciosa.
Let me forget we ever have been parted!
_Pre._ Hadst thou not come——
_Vict._ I pray thee, do not chide me!
_Pre._ I should have perished here among these Gipsies.
_Vict._ Forgive me, sweet! for what I made thee suffer.
Think’st thou this heart could feel a moment’s joy,
Thou being absent? O, believe it not!
Indeed, since that sad hour I have not slept,
For thinking of the wrong I did to thee!
Dost thou forgive me? Say, wilt thou forgive me?
_Pre._ I have forgiven thee. Ere those words of anger
Were in the book of Heaven writ down against thee,
I had forgiven thee.
_Vict._ I’m the veriest fool
That walks the earth, to have believed thee false.
It was the Count of Lara——
_Pre._ That bad man
Has worked me harm enough. Hast thou not heard——
_Vict._ I have heard all. And yet speak on, speak on!
Let me but hear thy voice, and I am happy;
For every tone, like some sweet incantation,
Calls up the buried past to plead for me.
Speak, my beloved, speak into my heart,
Whatever fills and agitates thine own.
[_They walk aside._]
_Hyp._ All gentle quarrels in the pastoral poets,
All passionate love scenes in the best romances,
All chaste embraces on the public stage,
All soft adventures, which the liberal stars
Have winked at, as the natural course of things,
Have been surpassed here by my friend, the student,
And this sweet Gipsy lass, fair Preciosa!
_Pre._ Señor Hypolito! I kiss your hand.
Pray, shall I tell your fortune?
_Hyp._ Not to-night;
For, should you treat me as you did Victorian,
And send me back to marry maids forlorn,
My wedding-day would last from now till Christmas.
_Chispa_ [_within_]. What ho! the Gipsies, ho! Beltran Cruzado!
Halloo! halloo! halloo! halloo!
[_Enters booted, with a whip and lantern._]
_Vict._ What now?
Why such a fearful din? Hast thou been robbed?
_Chis._ Ay, robbed and murdered; and good evening to you,
My worthy masters.
_Vict._ Speak; what brings thee here?
_Chis._ [_to_ PRECIOSA]. Good news from Court; good news!
Beltran Cruzado,
The Count of the Calés, is not your father;
But your true father has returned to Spain
Laden with wealth. You are no more a Gipsy.
_Vict._ Strange as a Moorish tale!
_Chis._ And we have all
Been drinking at the tavern to your health,
As wells drink in November, when it rains.
_Vict._ Where is the gentleman?
_Chis._ As the old song says,
His body is in Segovia,
His soul is in Madrid.
_Pre._ Is this a dream? O, if it be a dream,
Let me sleep on, and do not wake me yet!
Repeat thy story! Say I’m not deceived!
Say that I do not dream! I am awake;
This is the Gipsy camp; this is Victorian,
And this his friend, Hypolito! Speak! speak!
Let me not wake and find it all a dream!
_Vict._ It is a dream, sweet child! a waking dream,
A blissful certainty, a vision bright
Of that rare happiness, which even on earth
Heaven gives to those it loves. Now art thou rich,
As thou wast ever beautiful and good;
And I am now the beggar.
_Pre._ [_giving him her hand._] I have still
A hand to give.
_Chis._ [_aside_]. And I have two to take.
I’ve heard my grandmother say, that Heaven gives almonds
To those who have no teeth. That’s nuts to crack.
I’ve teeth to spare, but where shall I find almonds?
_Vict._ What more of this strange story?
_Chis._ Nothing more.
Your friend, Don Carlos, is now at the village
Showing to Pedro Crespo, the Alcalde,
The proofs of what I tell you. The old hag,
Who stole you in her childhood, has confessed;
And probably they will hang her for the crime,
To make the celebration more complete.
_Vict._ No; let it be a day of general joy;
Fortune comes well to all, that comes not late.
Now let us join Don Carlos.
_Hyp._ So farewell,
The student’s wandering life! Sweet serenades,
Sung under ladies’ windows in the night,
And all that makes vacation beautiful!
To you, ye cloistered shades of Alcalá,
To you, ye radiant visions of romance,
Written in books, but here surpassed by truth,
The Bachelor Hypolito returns,
And leaves the Gipsy with the Spanish Student.
SCENE VI.—_A pass in the Guadarrama mountains. Early morning. A
muleteer crosses the stage, sitting sideways on his mule, and lighting
a paper cigar with flint and steel._
SONG.
If thou art sleeping, maiden,
Awake and open thy door,
’Tis the break of day, and we must away
O’er meadow, and mount, and moor.
Wait not to find thy slippers,
But come with thy naked feet;
We shall have to pass through the dewy grass,
And waters wide and fleet.
[_Disappears down the pass. Enter a Monk. A Shepherd appears on the
rocks above._]
_Monk._ Ave Maria, gratia plena. Olá! good man!
_Shep._ Olá!
_Monk._ Is this the road to Segovia?
_Shep._ It is, your reverence.
_Monk._ How far is it?
_Shep._ I do not know.
_Monk._ What is that yonder in the valley?
_Shep._ San Ildefonso.
_Monk._ A long way to breakfast.
_Shep._ Ay, marry.
_Monk._ Are there robbers in these mountains?
_Shep._ Yes, and worse than that.
_Monk._ What?
_Shep._ Wolves.
_Monk._ Santa Maria! Come with me to San Ildefonso, and thou shalt be
well rewarded.
_Shep._ What wilt thou give me?
_Monk._ An Agnus Dei and my benediction.
[_They disappear. A mounted Contrabandista passes, wrapped in his
cloak, and a gun at his saddle-bow. He goes down the pass singing._]
SONG.
Worn with speed is my good steed,
And I march me, hurried, worried;
Onward, caballito mio,
With the white star in thy forehead!
Onward, for here comes the Ronda,
And I hear their rifles crack!
Ay, jaléo! Ay, ay, jaléo!
Ay, jaléo! They cross our track!
[_Song dies away. Enter_ PRECIOSA, _on horseback, attended by_
VICTORIAN, HYPOLITO, DON CARLOS, _and_ CHISPA, _on foot, and armed_.]
_Vict._ This is the highest point. Here let us rest.
See, Preciosa, see how all about us
Kneeling, like hooded friars, the misty mountains
Receive the benediction of the sun!
O glorious sight!
_Pre._ Most beautiful indeed!
_Hyp._ Most wonderful!
_Vict._ And in the vale below,
Where yonder steeples flash like lifted halberds,
San Ildefonso, from its noisy belfries,
Sends up a salutation to the morn,
As if an army smote their brazen shields,
And shouted victory!
_Pre._ And which way lies
Segovia?
_Vict._ At a great distance yonder.
Dost thou not see it?
_Pre._ No, I do not see it.
_Vict._ The merest flaw that dents the horizon’s edge.
There, yonder!
_Hyp._ ’Tis a notable old town,
Boasting an ancient Roman aqueduct,
And an Alcázar, builded by the Moors,
Wherein, you may remember, poor Gil Blas
Was fed on _Pan del Rey_. O, many a time
Out of its grated windows have I looked
Hundreds of feet plumb down to the Eresma,
That, like a serpent through the valley creeping,
Glides at its foot.
_Pre._ O, yes! I see it now,
Yet rather with my heart than with mine eyes,
So faint it is. And, all my thoughts sail thither,
Freighted with prayers and hopes, and forward urged
Against all stress of accident, as, in
The Eastern Tale, against the wind and tide,
Great ships were drawn to the Magnetic Mountains,
And there were wrecked and perished in the sea!
[_She weeps._]
_Vict._ O gentle spirit! Thou didst bear unmoved
Blasts of adversity and frosts of fate!
But the first ray of sunshine that falls on thee
Melts thee to tears! O, let thy weary heart
Lean upon mine! and it shall faint no more,
Nor thirst, nor hunger; but be comforted
And filled with my affection.
_Pre._ Stay no longer!
My father waits. Methinks I see him there,
Now looking from the window, and now watching
Each sound of wheels or footfall in the street,
And saying, “Hark! she comes!” O father! father!
[_They descend the pass._ CHISPA _remains behind_.]
_Chis._ I have a father, too, but he is a dead one. Alas and
alack-a-day! Poor was I born, and poor do I remain. I neither win nor
lose. Thus I wag through the world, half the time on foot, and the
other half walking: and always as merry as a thunder-storm in the
night. And so we plough along, as the fly said to the ox. Who knows
what may happen? Patience and shuffle the cards! I am not yet so bald
that you can see my brains; and perhaps, after all, I shall some day go
to Rome, and come back Saint Peter. Benedicite!
[_Exit._
[_A pause. Then enter_ BARTOLOMÉ _wildly, as if in pursuit, with a
carbine in his hand_.]
_Bart._ They passed this way! I hear their horses’ hoofs!
Yonder I see them! Come, sweet caramillo,
This serenade shall be the Gipsy’s last!
[_Fires down the pass._]
Ha! ha! Well whistled, my sweet caramillo!
Well whistled!—I have missed her!—O, my God!
[_The shot is returned._ BARTOLOMÉ _falls_.]
[Illustration]
_Evangeline._
A TALE OF ACADIE.
1847.
PREFATORY NOTE.
The story of “EVANGELINE” is founded on a painful occurrence which took
place in the early period of British colonization in the northern part
of America.
In the year 1713, Acadia, or, as it is now named, Nova Scotia, was
ceded to Great Britain by the French. The wishes of the inhabitants
seem to have been little consulted in the change, and they with great
difficulty were induced to take the oaths of allegiance to the British
Government. Some time after this, war having again broken out between
the French and British in Canada, the Acadians were accused of having
assisted the French, from whom they were descended, and connected by
many ties of friendship, with provisions and ammunition, at the siege
of Beau Séjour. Whether the accusation was founded on fact or not,
has not been satisfactorily ascertained; the result, however, was
most disastrous to the primitive, simple-minded Acadians. The British
Government ordered them to be removed from their homes, and dispersed
throughout the other colonies, at a distance from their much-loved
land. This resolution was not communicated to the inhabitants till
measures had been matured to carry it into immediate effect; when the
Governor of the colony, having issued a summons calling the whole
people to a meeting, informed them that their lands, tenements, and
cattle of all kinds were forfeited to the British crown, that he had
orders to remove them in vessels to distant colonies, and they must
remain in custody till their embarkation.
The poem is descriptive of the fate of some of the persons involved in
these calamitous proceedings.
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 neighbouring 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 for ever
departed,
Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of
October
Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far over
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 farmer had raised with labour
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
corn-fields
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 farm, 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 doorway.
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 labourers 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 times 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 pent-house,
Such as the traveller sees in regions remote by the road-side,
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 honoured 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
plainsong.
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 a
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 labouring 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 hill-side 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 thought 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 vapours 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
sea-side,
Where was their favourite 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 odour.
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 foes 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 midst 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 cheerfulest 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 meantime
Many surmises of evil alarm the hearts of the people.”
Then made answer the farmer—“Perhaps some friendlier purpose
Bring these ships to our shores. Perhaps the harvests in England
By the 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 Séjour, 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 us 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
corn-fields,
Safer within these peaceful dikes, besieged by the ocean,
Than were 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.
René 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 labouring 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 Létiche, 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
horseshoes,
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 demeanour 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 favourite tale, and he loved to repeat it
When his neighbours 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 ere long 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
vapours
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 manœuvre,
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
hearthstone,
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 through 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 labour
Knocked with its hundred hands at the golden gates of the
morning.
Now from the country around, from the farms and the neighbouring
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 labour 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
waist-coats.
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.
Gaily 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 ere long was the church with men. Without, in the
churchyard,
Waited the women. They stood by the graves, and hung on the
head-stones
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 a loud and dissonant clangour
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 inclosures;
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 doorway.
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 laboured 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 that passionate
outbreak;
While 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 ardour 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 splendour, 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 vapours
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, until, 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 neighbouring 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 the shore and the ships did the boats ply;
All day long the wains came labouring down from the village.
Late in the afternoon, when the sun was near to his setting,
Echoing 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
way-worn,
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 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 weary 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
waggons,
Like to a gipsy 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 odour 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 the
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 flames intermingled.
These things beheld in dismay the crowd on the shore and on
ship-board.
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
sea-side,
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 that tide the ships sailed out of the
harbour,
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
north-east
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 endeavour;
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 rumour, 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,—“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.”
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
refreshment;
That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the
fountain.
Patience; accomplish thy labour; accomplish thy work of
affection!
Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance is godlike.
Therefore accomplish thy labour of love, till the heart is made
godlike,
Purified, strengthened, perfected, and rendered more worthy of
heaven!”
Cheered by the good man’s word, Evangeline laboured 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 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,
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.
While 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 those 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,
All 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 Têche, 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.”
And 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 vapours 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 neighbouring thicket the mocking-bird, 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 Têche, 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 neighbouring
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
Girded 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 deer-skin.
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 vapoury 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 recognised Basil the Blacksmith.
Hearty his welcome was, as he led his guests to the garden.
There in an arbour 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 comrade’s 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 demeanour;
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 breezy 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 so 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, brawny hand came thundering down on the table,
So that the guests all started; and Father Felician, astounded,
Suddenly paused, with a pinch of snuff half-way 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 neighbouring 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 neighbours:
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 neighbouring 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
Old 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 odours, 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 brown 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 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 labour,
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 neighbouring
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 bank, 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
Rumours 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 waggon,
Westward the Oregon flows and the Walleway and Owyhee.
Eastward, with devious course, among the Wind-river Mountains,
Through the Sweet-water Valley precipitate leaps the Nebraska;
And to the south, from Fontaine-qui-bout and the Spanish
sierras,
Fretted with sand 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
brook-side;
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 splendour
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.
And 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 aërial 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
corn-field.
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 are turned to the north, as true as the
magnet;
This is the compass-flower, that the finger of God has planted
Here in the houseless wild, 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 odour 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
blue-bird
Sounded sweet upon wold and in wood, yet Gabriel came not.
But on the breath of the summer winds a rumour was wafted
Sweeter than song of bird, or hue or odour 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 grey 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 René 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 endeavour,
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 death-like 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 grey of the dawn, as slow through the
suburbs
Plodded the German farmer, with flowers and fruits of 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 splendour, 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 splendour,
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 ere long 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 odour 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
road-side.
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 for ever.
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 colourless 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 grey 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, for ever 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 for
ever,
Thousands of aching brains, where theirs are no longer busy,
Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased from their
labours,
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 neighbouring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the
forest.
[Illustration]
_The Seaside and the Fireside._
1849.
DEDICATION.
As one who, walking in the twilight gloom,
Hears round about him voices as it darkens,
And seeing not the forms from which they come,
Pauses from time to time, and turns and hearkens;
So walking here in twilight, O my friends!
I hear your voices, softened by the distance,
And pause, and turn to listen, as each sends
His words of friendship, comfort, and assistance.
If any thought of mine, or sung or told,
Has ever given delight or consolation,
Ye have repaid me back a thousand fold,
By every friendly sign and salutation.
Thanks for the sympathies that ye have shown!
Thanks for each kindly word, each silent token,
That teaches me, when seeming most alone,
Friends are around us, though no word be spoken.
Kind messages that pass from land to land;
Kind letters, that betray the heart’s deep history,
In which we feel the pressure of a hand,—
One touch of fire,—and all the rest is mystery!
The pleasant books, that silently among
Our household treasures take familiar places,
And are to us as if a living tongue
Spake from the printed leaves or pictured faces!
Perhaps on earth I never shall behold,
With eye of sense, your outward form and semblance;
Therefore to me ye never will grow old,
But live for ever young in my remembrance.
Never grow old, nor change, nor pass away!
Your gentle voices will flow on for ever,
When life grows bare and tarnished with decay,
As through a leafless landscape flows a river.
Not chance of birth or place has made us friends,
Being oftentimes of different tongues and nations,
But the endeavour for the selfsame ends,
With the same hopes, and fears, and aspirations.
Therefore I hope to join your sea-side walk,
Saddened, and mostly silent, with emotion;
Not interrupting with intrusive talk
The grand, majestic symphonies of ocean.
Therefore I hope, as no unwelcome guest,
At your warm fireside, when the lamps are lighted,
To have my place reserved among the rest,
Nor stand as one unsought and uninvited!
_By the Seaside._
THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP.
“Build me straight, O worthy Master!
Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel,
That shall laugh at all disaster,
And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!”
The merchant’s word
Delighted the Master heard;
For his heart was in his work, and the heart
Giveth grace unto every Art.
A quiet smile played round his lips,
As the eddies and dimples of the tide
Play round the bows of ships,
That steadily at anchor ride.
And with a voice that was full of glee,
He answered, “Ere long we will launch
A vessel as goodly, and strong, and staunch,
As ever weathered a wintry sea!”
And first with nicest skill and art,
Perfect and finished in every part,
A little model the Master wrought,
Which should be to the larger plan
What the child is to the man,
Its counterpart in miniature;
That with a hand more swift and sure
The greater labour might be brought
To answer to his inward thought.
And as he laboured, his mind ran o’er
The various ships that were built of yore,
And above them all, and strangest of all,
Towered the _Great Harry_, crank and tall,
Whose picture was hanging on the wall,
With bows and stern raised high in air,
And balconies hanging here and there,
And signal lanterns and flags afloat,
And eight round towers, like those that frown
From some old castle, looking down
Upon the drawbridge and the moat.
And he said with a smile, “Our ship, I wis,
Shall be of another form than this!”
It was of another form, indeed;
Built for freight, and yet for speed,
A beautiful and gallant craft;
Broad in the beam, that the stress of the blast,
Pressing down upon sail and mast,
Might not the sharp bows overwhelm;
Broad in the beam, but sloping aft
With graceful curve and slow degrees,
That she might be docile to the helm,
And that the currents of parted seas,
Closing behind, with mighty force,
Might aid and not impede her course.
In the ship-yard stood the Master,
With the model of the vessel,
That should laugh at all disaster,
And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!
Covering many a rood of ground,
Lay the timber piled around;
Timber of chestnut, and elm, and oak.
And scattered here and there, with these,
The knarred and crooked cedar knees;
Brought from regions far away,
From Pascagoula’s sunny bay,
And the banks of the roaring Roanoke!
Ah! what a wondrous thing it is
To note how many wheels of toil
One thought, one word, can set in motion!
There’s not a ship that sails the ocean,
But every climate, every soil,
Must bring its tribute, great or small,
And help to build the wooden wall!
The sun was rising o’er the sea,
And long the level shadows lay,
As if they, too, the beams would be
Of some great, airy argosy,
Framed and launched in a single day.
That silent architect, the sun,
Had hewn and laid them every one,
Ere the work of man was yet begun.
Beside the Master, when he spoke,
A youth, against an anchor leaning,
Listened to catch his slightest meaning.
Only the long waves, as they broke
In ripples on the pebbly beach,
Interrupted the old man’s speech.
Beautiful they were, in sooth,
The old man and the fiery youth!
The old man, in whose busy brain
Many a ship that sailed the main
Was modelled o’er and o’er again;—
The fiery youth, who was to be
The heir of his dexterity,
The heir of his house, and his daughter’s hand,
When he had built and launched from land
What the elder head had planned.
“Thus,” said he, “will we build this ship!
Lay square the blocks upon the slip,
And follow well this plan of mine.
Choose the timbers with greatest care;
Of all that is unsound beware;
For only what is sound and strong
To this vessel shall belong.
Cedar of Maine and Georgia pine
Here together shall combine.
A goodly frame, and a goodly fame,
And the UNION be her name!
For the day that gives her to the sea
Shall give my daughter unto thee!”
The Master’s word
Enraptured the young man heard;
And as he turned his face aside,
With a look of joy and a thrill of pride,
Standing before
Her father’s door,
He saw the form of his promised bride.
The sun shone on her golden hair,
And her cheek was glowing fresh and fair,
With the breath of morn and the soft sea air.
Like a beauteous barge was she,
Still at rest on the sandy beach,
Just beyond the billow’s reach;
But he,
Was the restless, seething, stormy sea!
Ah, how skilful grows the hand
That obeyeth Love’s command!
It is the heart, and not the brain,
That to the highest doth attain,
And he who followeth Love’s behest
Far exceedeth all the rest!
Thus with the rising of the sun
Was the noble task begun,
And soon throughout the ship-yard’s bounds
Were heard the intermingled sounds
Of axes and of mallets, plied
With vigorous arms on every side;
Plied so deftly and so well,
That ere the shadows of evening fell,
The keel of oak for a noble ship,
Scarfed and bolted, straight and strong,
Was lying ready, and stretched along
The blocks, well placed upon the slip.
Happy, thrice happy, every one
Who sees his labours well begun,
And not perplexed and multiplied,
By idly waiting for time and tide!
And when the hot, long day was o’er,
The young Man at the Master’s door
Sat with the maiden calm and still.
And within the porch, a little more
Removed beyond the evening chill,
The father sat, and told them tales
Of wrecks in the great September gales,
Of pirates upon the Spanish Main,
And ships that never came back again;
The chance and change of a sailor’s life,
Want and plenty, rest and strife,
His roving fancy, like the wind,
That nothing can stay and nothing can bind;
And the magic charm of foreign lands,
With shadows of palms, and shining sands,
Where the tumbling surf,
O’er the coral reefs of Madagascar,
Washes the feet of the swarthy Lascar,
As he lies alone and asleep on the turf.
And the trembling maiden held her breath
At the tales of that awful, pitiless sea,
With all its terror and mystery,
The dim, dark sea, so like unto Death,
That divides, and yet unites, mankind!
And whenever the old man paused, a gleam
From the bowl of his pipe would awhile illume
The silent group in the twilight gloom,
And thoughtful faces, as in a dream;
And for a moment one might mark
What had been hidden by the dark,
That the head of the maiden lay at rest,
Tenderly, on the young man’s breast!
Day by day the vessel grew,
With timbers fashioned strong and true,
Stemson and keelson and sternson-knee,
Till, framed with perfect symmetry,
A skeleton ship rose up to view!
And around the bows and along the side
The heavy hammers and mallets plied,
Till after many a week, at length,
Wonderful for form and strength,
Sublime in its enormous bulk,
Loomed aloft the shadowy hulk!
And around it columns of smoke, up-wreathing,
Rose from the boiling, bubbling, seething
Caldron, that glowed,
And overflowed
With the black tar, heated for the sheathing.
And amid the clamours
Of clattering hammers,
He who listened heard now and then
The song of the Master and his men:—
“Build me straight, O worthy Master,
Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel,
That shall laugh at all disaster,
And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!”
With oaken brace and copper band,
Lay the rudder on the sand,
That, like a thought, should have control
Over the movement of the whole;
And near it the anchor, whose giant hand
Would reach down and grapple with the land,
And immoveable and fast
Hold the great ship against the bellowing blast!
And at the bows an image stood,
By a cunning artist carved in wood,
With robes of white, that far behind
Seemed to be fluttering in the wind.
It was not shaped in a classic mould,
Not like a Nymph or Goddess of old,
Or Naiad rising from the water,
But modelled from the Master’s daughter!
On many a dreary and misty night,
’Twill be seen by the rays of the signal light,
Speeding along through the rain and the dark,
Like a ghost in its snow-white sark,
The pilot of some phantom bark,
Guiding the vessel, in its flight,
By a path none other knows aright!
Behold, at last,[29]
Each tall and tapering mast
Is swung into its place;
Shrouds and stays
Holding it firm and fast!
Long ago,
In the deer-haunted forests of Maine,
When upon mountain and plain
Lay the snow,
They fell,—those lordly pines!
Those grand, majestic pines!
’Mid shouts and cheers
The jaded steers,
Panting beneath the goad,
Dragged down the weary, winding road
Those captive kings so straight and tall,
To be shorn of their streaming hair,
And, naked and bare,
To feel the stress and the strain
Of the wind and the reeling main,
Whose roar
Would remind them for evermore
Of their native forests they should not see again.
And everywhere
The slender, graceful spars
Poise aloft in the air,
And at the mast head,
White, blue, and red,
A flag unrolls the stripes and stars.
Ah! when the wanderer, lonely, friendless,
In foreign harbours shall behold
That flag unrolled,
’Twill be as a friendly hand
Stretched out from his native land,
Filling his heart with memories sweet and endless!
All is finished! and at length
Has come the bridal day
Of beauty and of strength.
To-day the vessel shall be launched!
With fleecy clouds the sky is blanched,
And o’er the bay,
Slowly, in all his splendours dight,
The great sun rises to behold the sight.
The ocean old,
Centuries old,
Strong as youth, and as uncontrolled,
Paces restless to and fro,
Up and down the sands of gold.
His beating heart is not at rest;
And far and wide,
With ceaseless flow,
His beard of snow
Heaves with the heaving of his breast.
He waits impatient for his bride.
There she stands,
With her foot upon the sands,
Decked with flags and streamers gay,
In honour of her marriage day,
Her snow-white signals fluttering, blending,
Round her like a veil descending,
Ready to be
The bride of the grey old sea.
On the deck another bride
Is standing by her lover’s side.
Shadows from the flags and shrouds,
Like the shadows cast by clouds,
Broken by many a sunny fleck,
Fall around them on the deck.