LITMIR.BIZ

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your dwellings and barns, and stealing your farms and your cattle."

      Speaking these words, he blew a wrathful cloud from his nostrils,

      While his huge, brown hand came thundering down on the table,

      So that the guests all started; and Father Felician, astounded,

      Suddenly paused, with a pinch of snuff half-way to his nostrils.

      But the brave Basil resumed, and his words were milder and gayer:—

      "Only beware of the fever, my friends, beware of the fever!

      For it is not like that of our cold Acadian climate,

      Cured by wearing a spider hung round one's neck in a nutshell!"

      Then there were voices heard at the door, and footsteps approaching

      Sounded upon the stairs and the floor of the breezy veranda.

      It was the neighboring Creoles and small Acadian planters,

      Who had been summoned all to the house of Basil the Herdsman.

      Merry the meeting was of ancient comrades and neighbors:

      Friend clasped friend in his arms; and they who before were as strangers,

      Meeting in exile, became straightway as friends to each other,

      Drawn by the gentle bond of a common country together.

      But in the neighboring hall a strain of music, proceeding

      From the accordant strings of Michael's melodious fiddle,

      Broke up all further speech. Away, like children delighted,

      All things forgotten beside, they gave themselves to the maddening

      Whirl of the dizzy dance, as it swept and swayed to the music,

      Dreamlike, with beaming eyes and the rush of fluttering garments.

       Meanwhile, apart, at the head of the hall, the priest and the herdsman

      Sat, conversing together of past and present and future;

      While Evangeline stood like one entranced, for within her

      Olden memories rose, and loud in the midst of the music

      Heard she the sound of the sea, and an irrepressible sadness

      Came o'er her heart, and unseen she stole forth into the garden.

      Beautiful was the night. Behind the black wall of the forest,

      Tipping its summit with silver, arose the moon. On the river

      Fell here and there through the branches a tremulous gleam of the moonlight,

      Like the sweet thoughts of love on a darkened and devious spirit.

      Nearer and round about her, the manifold flowers of the garden

      Poured out their souls in odors, that were their prayers and confessions

      Unto the night, as it went its way, like a silent Carthusian.

      Fuller of fragrance than they, and as heavy with shadows and night-dews,

      Hung the heart of the maiden. The calm and the magical moonlight

      Seemed to inundate her soul with indefinable longing;

      As, through the garden gate, and beneath the shade of the oak-trees,

      Passed she along the path to the edge of the measureless prairie.

      Silent it lay, with a silvery haze upon it, and fire-flies

      Gleaming and floating away in mingled and infinite numbers.

      Over her head the stars, the thoughts of God in the heavens,

      Shone on the eyes of man who had ceased to marvel and worship,

      Save when a blazing comet was seen on the walls of that temple,

      As if a hand had appeared and written upon them, "Upharsin."

      And the soul of the maiden, between the stars and the fire-flies,

      Wandered alone, and she cried, "O Gabriel! O my beloved!

      Art thou so near unto me, and yet I cannot behold thee?

      Art thou so near unto me, and yet thy voice does not reach me?

      Ah! how often thy feet have trod this path to the prairie!

      Ah! how often thine eyes have looked on the woodlands around me!

      Ah! how often beneath this oak, returning from labor,

      Thou hast lain down to rest and to dream of me in thy slumbers!

      When shall these eyes behold, these arms be folded about thee?"

      Loud and sudden and near the note of a whippoorwill sounded

      Like a flute in the woods; and anon, through the neighboring thickets,

      Farther and farther away it floated and dropped into silence.

      "Patience!" whispered the oaks from oracular caverns of darkness:

      And, from the moonlit meadow, a sigh responded, "To-morrow!"

       Bright rose the sun next day; and all the flowers of the garden

      Bathed his shining feet with their tears, and anointed his tresses

      With the delicious balm that they bore in their vases of crystal.

      "Farewell!" said the priest, as he stood at the shadowy threshold;

      "See that you bring us the Prodigal Son from his fasting and famine,

      And, too, the Foolish Virgin, who slept when the bridegroom was coming."

      "Farewell!" answered the maiden, and, smiling, with Basil descended

      Down to the river's brink, where the boatmen already were waiting.

      Thus beginning their journey with morning, and sunshine, and gladness,

      Swiftly they followed the flight of him who was speeding before them,

      Blown by the blast of fate like a dead leaf over the desert.

      Not that day, nor the next, nor yet the day that succeeded,

      Found they trace of his course, in lake or forest or river,

      Nor, after many days, had they found him; but vague and uncertain

      Rumors alone were their guides through a wild and desolate Country;

      Till, at the little inn of the Spanish town of Adayes,

      Weary and worn, they alighted, and learned from the garrulous landlord,

      That on the day before, with horses and guides and companions,

      Gabriel left the village, and took the road of the prairies.

IV

       Table of Contents

      Far in the West there lies a desert land, where the mountains

      Lift, through perpetual snows, their lofty and luminous summits.

      Down from their jagged, deep ravines, where the gorge, like a gateway,

      Opens a passage rude to the wheels of the emigrant's wagon,

      Westward the Oregon flows and the Walleway and Owyhee.

      Eastward, with devious course, among the Wind-river Mountains,

      Through the Sweet-water Valley precipitate leaps the Nebraska;

      And to the south, from Fontaine-qui-bout and the Spanish sierras,

      Fretted with sands and rocks, and swept by the wind of the desert,

      Numberless torrents, with ceaseless sound, descend to the ocean,

      Like the great chords of a harp, in loud and solemn vibrations.

      Spreading

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