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
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,
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.
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 roasts 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,
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.
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.
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, 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.
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.
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.
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 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
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;
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.
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,
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,
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 green Opelousas,
And, through the amber air, above the crest of the
woodland,
Saw the column of smoke that arose from a neighboring
dwelling;—
Sounds of a horn they heard, and the distant lowing
of cattle.
