II. HE book is completed, TH And closed, like the day; And the hand that has written it Lays it away. Dim grow its fancies; Like coals in the ashes, Song sinks into silence, The story is told, The windows are darkened, The hearth-stone is cold. Darker and darker The black shadows fall; Sleep and oblivion Reign over all. EVANGELINE ΤΗ HIS 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 pro phetic, Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms. Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest. This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman ? Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers, Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands, |