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,

While through the night were heard the mysterious sounds of the desert,

Far off, indistinct,

the forest,

as of wave or wind in

Mixed with the whoop of the crane and the roar of the grim alligator.

Thus ere another noon they emerged from the shades; and before them

Lay, in the golden sun, the lakes of the Atcha

falaya.

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 grape-vine

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 number

less islands,

Darted a light, swift boat, that sped away o'er

the water,