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."

66

"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 labor; accomplish thy work of affection! Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance is godlike, 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,

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.

Ir 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,