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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 plume-like
Cotton-trees nodded their
shadowy crests, they swept with the current,
They
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 dovecots.
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.
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 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 grapevine
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 or 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 careworn.
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 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,
And undisturbed by the dash of their
oars, and unseen, were the sleepers;
Angel of God was
there none to awaken the slumbering 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 Teche, are the towns of St Maur and
St Martin.
There the long-wandering bride shall be
given again to the 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 willowy 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 of 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 Teche, where it flows through the
greenOpelousas,
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.
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