Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50)

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Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) Page 241

by Homer


  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 awoke from the trance, she beheld a multitude near her. 645

  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. 650

  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 church-yard.’

  Such were the words of the priest. And there in haste by the sea-side, 655

  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. 660

  ’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 the tide the ships sailed out of the harbor,

  Leaving behind them the dead on the shore, and the village in ruins. 665

  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; 670

  Scattered were they, like flakes of snow, when the wind from the northeast

  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 675

  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. 680

  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, 685

  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, 690

  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 endeavor; 695

  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 rumor, a hearsay, an inarticulate whisper,

  Came with its airy hand to point and beckon her forward. 700

  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!’ they said; ‘Oh 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.’ 705

  ‘Gabriel Lajeunesse!’ said others; ‘Oh 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? 710

  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. 715

  For when the heart goes before, like a lamp, and illumines the pathway,

  Many things are made clear, that else lie hidden in darkness.’

  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; 720

  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 labor; accomplish thy work of affection!

  Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance is godlike. 725

  Therefore accomplish thy labor of love, till the heart is made godlike,

  Purified, strengthened, perfected, and rendered more worthy of heaven!’

  Cheered by the good man’s words, Evangeline labored 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!’ 730

  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: 735

  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. 740

  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 745

  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. 750

  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 755

  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, 760

  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. 765

  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 770

  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, 775

  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. 780

  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 785

  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, 790

  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. 795

  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, 800

  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. 805

  Thus ere another noon they emerged from the 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. 810

  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. 815

  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 820

  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 825

  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. 830

  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 of sorrow. 835

  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. 840

  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. 845

  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, — 850

  ‘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, 855

  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 860

  Bending above, and resting its dome on the walls of the forest.

  They who dwell there have named it the Eden of Louisiana!’

  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; 865

  Twinkling vapors 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. 870

  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 neighboring 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, 875

  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, 880

  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, 885

  Saw the column of smoke that arose from a neighboring 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,

 

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