In that delightful land which is washed by the Delaware’s
waters,
Guarding in sylvan shades the name of Penn the apostle,
Stands on the banks of its beautiful stream the city
he founded.
There all the air is balm, and the peach is the emblem
of beauty,
And the streets still re-echo the names of the trees
of the forest,
As if they fain would appease the Dryads whose haunts
they molested.
There from the troubled sea had Evangeline landed,
an exile,
Finding among the children of Penn a home and a country.
There old Rene Leblanc had died; and when he departed,
Saw at his side only one of all his hundred descendants.
Something at least there was in the friendly streets
of the city,
Something that spake to her heart, and made her no
longer a stranger;
And her ear was pleased with the Thee and Thou of
the Quakers,
For it recalled the past, the old Acadian country,
Where all men were equal, and all were brothers and
sisters.
So, when the fruitless search, the disappointed endeavor,
Ended, to recommence no more upon earth, uncomplaining,
Thither, as leaves to the light, were turned her thoughts
and her footsteps.
As from a mountain’s top the rainy mists of
the morning
Roll away, and afar we behold the landscape below
us,
Sun-illumined, with shining rivers and cities and
hamlets,
So fell the mists from her mind, and she saw the world
far below her,
Dark no longer, but all illumined with love; and the
pathway
Which she had climbed so far, lying smooth and fair
in the distance.
Gabriel was not forgotten. Within her heart
was his image,
Clothed in the beauty of love and youth, as last she
beheld him,
Only more beautiful made by his deathlike silence
and absence.
Into her thoughts of him time entered not, for it
was not.
Over him years had no power; he was not changed, but
transfigured;
He had become to her heart as one who is dead, and
not absent;
Patience and abnegation of self, and devotion to others,
This was the lesson a life of trial and sorrow had
taught her.
So was her love diffused, but, like to some odorous
spices,
Suffered no waste nor loss, though filling the air
with aroma.
Other hope had she none, nor wish in life, but to
follow
Meekly, with reverent steps, the sacred feet of her
Saviour.
Thus many years she lived as a Sister of Mercy; frequenting
Lonely and wretched roofs in the crowded lanes of
the city,
Where distress and want concealed themselves from
the sunlight,
Where disease and sorrow in garrets languished neglected.
Night after night, when the world was asleep, as the
watchman repeated
Loud, through the gusty streets, that all was well
in the city,
High at some lonely window he saw the light of her
taper.
Day after day, in the gray of the dawn, as slow through
the suburbs
Plodded the German farmer, with flowers and fruits
for the market,
Met he that meek, pale face, returning home from its
watchings.
Then it came to pass that a pestilence fell on the
city,
Presaged by wondrous signs, and mostly by flocks of
wild pigeons,
Darkening the sun in their flight, with naught in
their craws but an acorn.
And, as the tides of the sea arise in the month of
September,
Flooding some silver stream, till it spreads to a
lake in the meadow,
So death flooded life, and, o’erflowing its
natural margin,
Spread to a brackish lake, the silver stream of existence.
Wealth had no power to bribe, nor beauty to charm,
the oppressor;
But all perished alike beneath the scourge of his
anger;—
Only, alas! the poor, who had neither friends nor
attendants,
Crept away to die in the almshouse, home of the homeless.
Then in the suburbs it stood, in the midst of meadows
and woodlands;
Now the city surrounds it; but still, with its gateway
and wicket
Meek, in the midst of splendor, its humble walls seem
to echo
Softly the words of the Lord:—“The
poor ye always have with you.”
Thither, by night and by day, came the Sister of Mercy.
The dying
Looked up into her face, and thought, indeed, to behold
there
Gleams of celestial light encircle her forehead with
splendor,
Such as the artist paints o’er the brows of
saints and apostles,
Or such as hangs by night o’er a city seen at
a distance.
Unto their eyes it seemed the lamps of the city celestial,
Into whose shining gates erelong their spirits would
enter.
Thus, on a Sabbath morn, through the streets, deserted
and silent,
Wending her quiet way, she entered the door of the
almshouse.
Sweet on the summer air was the odor of flowers in
the garden;
And she paused on her way to gather the fairest among
them,
That the dying once more might rejoice in their fragrance
and beauty.
Then, as she mounted the stairs to the corridors,
cooled by the east-wind,
Distant and soft on her ear fell the chimes from the
belfry of Christ Church,
While, intermingled with these, across the meadows
were wafted
Sounds of psalms, that were sung by the Swedes in
their church at Wicaco.
Soft as descending wings fell the calm of the hour
on her spirit;
Something within her said, “At length thy trials
are ended”;
And, with light in her looks, she entered the chambers
of sickness.
Noiselessly moved about the assiduous, careful attendants,
Moistening the feverish lip, and the aching brow,
and in silence
Closing the sightless eyes of the dead, and concealing
their faces,
Where on their pallets they lay, like drifts of snow
by the roadside.
Many a languid head, upraised as Evangeline entered,
Turned on its pillow of pain to gaze while she passed,
for her presence
Fell on their hearts like a ray of the sun on the
walls of a prison.
And, as she looked around, she saw how Death, the
consoler,
Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it forever.
Many familiar forms had disappeared in the night time;
Vacant their places were, or filled already by strangers.
Suddenly, as if arrested by fear or a feeling of
wonder,
Still she stood, with her colorless lips apart, while
a shudder
Ran through her frame, and, forgotten, the flowerets
dropped from her fingers,
And from her eyes and cheeks the light and bloom of
the morning.
Then there escaped from her lips a cry of such terrible
anguish,
That the dying heard it, and started up from their
pillows.
On the pallet before her was stretched the form of
an old man.
Long, and thin, and gray were the locks that shaded
his temples;
But, as he lay in the in morning light, his face for
a moment
Seemed to assume once more the forms of its earlier
manhood;
So are wont to be changed the faces of those who are
dying.
Hot and red on his lips still burned the flush of
the fever,
As if life, like the Hebrew, with blood had besprinkled
its portals,
That the Angel of Death might see the sign, and pass
over.
Motionless, senseless, dying, he lay, and his spirit
exhausted
Seemed to be sinking down through infinite depths
in the darkness,
Darkness of slumber and death, forever sinking and
sinking.
Then through those realms of shade, in multiplied
reverberations,
Heard he that cry of pain, and through the hush that
succeeded
Whispered a gentle voice, in accents tender and saint-like,
“Gabriel! O my beloved!” and died
away into silence.
Then he beheld, in a dream, once more the home of
his childhood;
Green Acadian meadows, with sylvan rivers among them,
Village, and mountain, and woodlands; and, walking
under their shadow,
As in the days of her youth, Evangeline rose in his
vision.
Tears came into his eyes; and as slowly he lifted
his eyelids,
Vanished the vision away, but Evangeline knelt by
his bedside.
Vainly he strove to whisper her name, for the accents
unuttered
Died on his lips, and their motion revealed what his
tongue would have spoken.
Vainly he strove to rise; and Evangeline, kneeling
beside him,
Kissed his dying lips, and laid his head on her bosom.
Sweet was the light of his eyes; but it suddenly sank
into darkness,
As when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind at a
casement.
All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the
sorrow,
All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied
longing,
All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of patience!
And, as she pressed once more the lifeless head to
her bosom,
Meekly she bowed her own, and murmured, “Father,
I thank thee!”
-------------
Still stands the forest primeval; but far away from
its shadow,
Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers
are sleeping.
Under the humble walls of the little Catholic churchyard,
In the heart of the city, they lie, unknown and unnoticed.
Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside
them,
Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at
rest and forever,
Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer
are busy,
Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased
from their labors,
Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed
their journey!
Still stands the forest primeval; but under the
shade of its branches
Dwells another race, with other customs and language.
Only along the shore of the mournful and misty Atlantic
Linger a few Acadian peasants, whose fathers from
exile
Wandered back to their native land to die in its bosom.
In the fisherman’s cot the wheel and the loom
are still busy;
Maidens still wear their Norman caps and their kirtles
of homespun,
And by the evening fire repeat Evangeline’s
story,
While from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced, neighboring
ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail
of the forest.
