LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

o'er the yellow fields, in silent and mournful procession,

      Came from the neighboring hamlets and farms the Acadian women,

      Driving in ponderous wains their household goods to the sea-shore,

      Pausing and looking back to gaze once more on their dwellings,

      Ere they were shut from sight by the winding road and the woodland.

      Close at their sides their children ran, and urged on the oxen,

      While in their little hands they clasped some fragments of playthings.

       Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth they hurried; and there on the sea-beach

      Piled in confusion lay the household goods of the peasants.

      All day long between the shore and the ships did the boats ply;

      All day long the wains came laboring down from the village.

      Late in the afternoon, when the sun was near to his setting,

      Echoed far o'er the fields came the roll of drums from the churchyard.

      Thither the women and children thronged. On a sudden the church-doors

      Opened, and forth came the guard, and marching in gloomy procession

      Followed the long-imprisoned, but patient, Acadian farmers.

      Even as pilgrims, who journey afar from their homes and their country,

      Sing as they go, and in singing forget they are weary and wayworn,

      So with songs on their lips the Acadian peasants descended

      Down from the church to the shore, amid their wives and their daughters.

      Foremost the young men came; and, raising together their voices,

      Sang with tremulous lips a chant of the Catholic Missions:—

      "Sacred heart of the Saviour! O inexhaustible fountain!

      Fill our hearts this day with strength and submission and patience!"

      Then the old men, as they marched, and the women that stood by the wayside

      Joined in the sacred psalm, and the birds in the sunshine above them

      Mingled their notes therewith, like voices of spirits departed.

       Half-way down to the shore Evangeline waited in silence,

      Not overcome with grief, but strong in the hour of affliction—

      Calmly and sadly she waited, until the procession approached her,

      And she beheld the face of Gabriel pale with emotion.

      Team then filled her eyes, and, eagerly running to meet him,

      Clasped she his hands, and laid her head on his shoulder, and whispered—

      "Gabriel! be of good cheer! for if we love one another

      Nothing, in truth, can harm us, whatever mischances may happen!"

      Smiling she spake these words; then suddenly paused, for her father

      Saw she slowly advancing. Alas! how changed was his aspect!

      Gone was the glow from his cheek, and the fire from his eye, and his footstep

      Heavier seemed with the weight of the heavy heart in his bosom.

      But with a smile and a sigh, she clasped his neck and embraced him,

      Speaking words of endearment where words of comfort availed not.

      Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth moved on that mournful procession.

       There disorder prevailed, and the tumult and stir of embarking.

      Busily plied the freighted boats; and in the confusion

      Wives were torn from their husbands, and mothers, too late, saw their children

      Left on the land, extending their arms, with wildest entreaties.

      So unto separate ships were Basil and Gabriel carried,

      While in despair on the shore Evangeline stood with her father.

      Half the task was not done when the sun went down, and the twilight

      Deepened and darkened around; and in haste the refluent ocean

      Fled away from the shore, and left the line of the sand-beach

      Covered with waifs of the tide, with kelp and the slippery sea-weed.

      Farther back in the midst of the household goods and the wagons,

      Like to a gypsy camp, or a leaguer after a battle,

      All escape cut off by the sea, and the sentinels near them,

      Lay encamped for the night the houseless Acadian farmers.

      Back to its nethermost caves retreated the bellowing ocean,

      Dragging adown the beach the rattling pebbles, and leaving

      Inland and far up the shore the stranded boats of the sailors.

      Then, as the night descended, the herds returned from their pastures;

      Sweet was the moist still air with the odor of milk from their udders;

      Lowing they waited, and long, at the well-known bars of the farm-yard—

      Waited and looked in vain for the voice and the hand of the milkmaid.

      Silence reigned in the streets; from the church no Angelus sounded,

      Rose no smoke from the roofs, and gleamed no lights from the windows.

       But on the shores meanwhile the evening fires had been kindled,

      Built of the drift-wood thrown on the sands from wrecks in the tempest.

      Round them shapes of gloom and sorrowful faces were gathered,

      Voices of women were heard, and of men, and the crying of children.

      Onward from fire to fire, as from hearth to hearth in his parish,

      Wandered the faithful priest, consoling and blessing and cheering,

      Like unto shipwrecked Paul on Melita's desolate sea-shore.

      Thus he approached the place where Evangeline sat with her father,

      And in the flickering light beheld the face of the old man,

      Haggard and hollow and wan, and without either thought or emotion,

      E'en as the face of a clock from which the hands have been taken.

      Vainly Evangeline strove with words and caresses to cheer him,

      Vainly offered him food; yet he moved not, he looked not, he spake not

      But, with a vacant stare, ever gazed at the flickering fire-light.

      "Benedicite!" murmured the priest, in tones of compassion.

      More he fain would have said, but his heart was full, and his accents

      Faltered and paused on his lips, as the feet of a child on a threshold,

      Hushed by the scene he beholds, and the awful presence of sorrow.

      Silently, therefore, he laid his hand on the head of the maiden,

      Raising his tearful eyes to the silent stars that above them

      Moved on their way, unperturbed by the wrongs and sorrows of mortals.

      Then sat he down at her side, and they wept together in silence.

       Suddenly rose from the south a light, as in autumn the blood-red

      Moon climbs the crystal walls of heaven, and o'er the horizon

      Titan-like stretches its hundred hands upon mountain and meadow,

      Seizing the rocks and the rivers, and piling huge shadows together.

      Broader and ever broader it gleamed on the roofs of the village,

      Gleamed on the sky and the sea, and the ships that lay in the roadstead.

      Columns

Скачать книгу