Thus did that poor soul wander in want and cheerless discomfort, Though he behold it not, he can hear its continuous murmur; II. It was the month of May. Far down the Beautiful River, Bound by the bonds of a common belief and a common mis fortune; Men and women and children, who, guided by hope or by hearsay, Sought for their kith and their kin among the few-acred farmers On the Acadian coast, and the prairies of fair Opelousas. With them Evangeline went, and her guide, the Father Felician. Onward o'er sunken sands, through a wilderness sombre with forests, Day after day they glided adown the turbulent river; Night after night, by their blazing fires, encamped on its borders. Now through rushing chutes, among green islands, where plume like Cotton-trees nodded their shadowy crests, they swept with the current, Then emerged into broad lagoons, where silvery sand-bars margin, Shining with snow-white plumes, large flocks of pelicans waded. summer, Where through the Golden Coast, and groves of orange and citron, 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 sad ness, Strange forebodings of ill, unseen and that cannot be compassed. 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 oars men, 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 mid night, Silent at times, and then singing familiar Canadian boat-songs, Such as they sang of old on their own Acadian rivers. And through the night were heard the mysterious sounds of the desert, Far off, indistinct, as of wave or wind in the forest, Mixed with the whoop of the crane and the roar of the grim alligator. Thus ere another noon they emerged from those shades; and before them Lay, in the golden sun, the lakes of the Atchafalaya. Tired with their midnight toil, the weary travellers slumbered. Swinging from its great arms, the trumpet-flower and the grape vine Hung their ladder of ropes aloft, like the ladder of Jacob, Such was the vision Evangeline saw as she slumbered beneath it. 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, willows, And undisturbed by the dash of their oars, and unseen, were the sleepers; Angel of God was there none to awaken the slumbering maiden. Swiftly they glided away, like the shade of a cloud on the prairie. After the sound of their oars on the tholes had died in the dis tance, As from a magic trance the sleepers awoke, and the maiden Or has an angel passed, and revealed the truth to my spirit ?" "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 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 Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together. singers, Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the water, Plaintive at first were the tones and sad; then soaring to madness 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 miseltoe flaunted, Just where the woodlands met the flowery surf of the prairie, |