The Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Read Online

He may have examined Winslow’s narrative of the expedition under his command, in the cabinet of the Massachusetts Historical Society, not then printed but since that time made easily accessible. He did not visit Grand-Pré nor the Mississippi, but trusted to descriptions and Banvard’s diorama. At the time of the publication of Evangeline the actual history of the deportation of the Acadians had scarcely been investigated. It is not too much to say that this tale was itself the cause of the frequent studies since made, studies which have resulted in a revision of the accepted rendering of the facts.

Mr. Longfellow gave to a Philadelphia journalist a reminiscence of his first notice of the material which was used in the conclusion of the poem: “I was passing down Spruce Street one day toward my hotel, after a walk, when my attention was attracted to a large building with beautiful trees about it, inside of a high enclosure. 1 I walked along until I came to the great gate, and then stepped inside, and looked carefully over the place. The charming picture of lawn, flowerbeds, and shade which it presented made an impression which has never left me, and when I came to write Evangeline I placed the final scene, the meeting between Evangeline and Gabriel, and the death, at the poor-house, and the burial in an old Catholic graveyard not far away, which I found by chance in another of my walks.”

From the outset Mr. Longfellow had no hesitation in the choice of a metre. He had before experimented in it in his translation of The Children of the Lord’s Supper, and in his lines To the Driving Cloud. While engaged upon Evangeline he chanced upon a specimen in Blackwood of a hexameter translation of the Iliad, and expressed himself very emphatically on its fitness. “Took down Chapman’s Homer,” he writes later, “and read the second book. Rough enough; and though better than Pope, how inferior to the books in hexameter in Blackwood! The English world is not yet awake to the beauty of that metre.” After his poem was published, he wrote: “The public takes more kindly to hexameters than I could have imagined,” and referring to a criticism on Evangeline by Mr. Felton, in which the metre was considered, he said: “I am more than ever glad that I chose this metre for my poem.” Again he notes in his diary: “Talked with Theophilus Parsons about English hexameters; and ‘almost persuaded him to be a Christian.’” While his mind was thus dwelling on the subject, he fell into the measure in his journal entries, and in these lines under date of December 18, 1847.

Soft through the silent air descend the feathery snow-flakes;
White are the distant hills, white are the neighboring fields;
Only the marshes are brown, and the river rolling among them
Weareth the leaden hue seen in the eyes of the blind.

Especially interesting is the experiment which he made, while in the process of his work, in another metre. “Finished second canto of Part II. of Evangeline. I then tried a passage of it in the common rhymed English pentameter. It is the song of the mocking-bird: —

       Upon a spray that overhung the stream,
The mocking-bird, awaking from his dream,
Poured such delirious music from his throat
That all the air seemed listening to his note.
Plaintive at first the song began, and slow;
It breathed of sadness, and of pain and woe;
Then, gathering all his notes, abroad he flung
The multitudinous music from his tongue, —
As, after showers, a sudden gust again
Upon the leaves shakes down the rattling rain.”

As the story of Evangeline was the incentive to historical inquiry, so the successful use of the hexameter had much to do both with the revival of the measure and with a critical discussion upon its value.

“Of the longer poems of our chief singer,” says Dr. Holmes, “I should not hesitate to select Evangeline as the masterpiece, and I think the general verdict of opinion would confirm my choice. The German model which it follows in its measure and the character of its story was itself suggested by an earlier idyl. If Dorothea was the mother of Evangeline, Luise was the mother of Dorothea. And what a beautiful creation is the Acadian maiden! From the first line of the poem, from its first words, we read as we would float down a broad and placid river, murmuring softly against its banks, heaven over it, and the glory of the unspoiled wilderness all around, —

This is the forest primeval

The words are already as familiar as

or

Arma virumque cano.

The hexameter has been often criticised, but I do not believe any other measure could have told that lovely story with such effect, as we feel when carried along the tranquil current of these brimming, slow-moving, soul-satisfying lines. Imagine for one moment a story like this minced into octosyllabics. The poet knows better than his critics the length of step which best befits his muse.”

The publication of Evangeline doubtless marks the period of Mr. Longfellow’s greatest accession of fame, as it probably is the poem which the majority of readers would first name if called upon to indicate the poet’s most commanding work. It was finished upon his fortieth birthday. Two days before, the following lines were written by Mr. Longfellow in his diary: —

EPIGRAMME

Par un ci-devant jeune homme en approchant de la quarantaine.

“Sous le firmament
Tout n’est que changement,
        Tout passe;”
Le cantique le dit,
Il est ainsi écrit
Il est sans contredit,
        Tout passe.

  O douce vie humaine!
O temps qui nous entraine!
Destinée souveraine!
        Tout change.
Moi qui, poète rêveur,
Ne fus jamais friseur.
Je frise, — oh, quelle horreur!
        La quarantaine!

EVANGELINE

THIS is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean    5
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

  This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it
Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman?
Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers, —
Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,    10
Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?
Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed!
Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October
Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o’er the ocean.
Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pré.    15

  Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient,
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman’s devotion,
List to the mournful tradition, still sung by the pines of the forest;
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy.

PART THE FIRST

I

IN the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,    20
Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pré
Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward,
Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without number.
Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with labor incessant,
Shut out the turbulent tides; but at stated seasons the flood-gates    25
Opened, and welcomed the sea to wander at will o’er the meadows.
West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards and cornfields
Spreading afar and unfenced o’er the plain; and away to the northward
Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the mountains
Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty Atlantic    30
Looked on the happy valley, but ne’er from their station descended.
There, in the midst of its farms, reposed the Acadian village.
Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and of hemlock,
Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign of the Henries.
Thatched were the roofs, with dormer-windows; and gables projecting    35
Over the basement below protected and shaded the doorway.
There in the tranquil evenings of summer, when brightly the sunset
Lighted the village street, and gilded the vanes on the chimneys,
Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in kirtles
Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the golden    40
Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles within doors
Mingled their sounds with the whir of the wheels and the songs of the maidens.
Solemnly down the street came the parish priest, and the children
Paused in their play to kiss the hand he extended to bless them.
Reverend walked he among them; and up rose matrons and maidens,    45
Hailing his slow approach with words of affectionate welcome.
Then came the laborers home from the field, and serenely the sun sank
Down to his rest, and twilight prevailed. Anon from the belfry
Softly the Angelus sounded, and over the roofs of the village
Columns of pale blue smoke, like clouds of incense ascending,    50
Rose from a hundred hearths, the homes of peace and contentment.
Thus dwelt together in love these simple Acadian farmers, —
Dwelt in the love of God and of man. Alike were they free from
Fear, that reigns with the tyrant, and envy, the vice of republics.
Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their windows;    55
But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts of the owners;
There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in abundance.

  Somewhat apart from the village, and nearer the Basin of Minas,
Benedict Bellefontaine, the wealthiest farmer of Grand-Pré,
Dwelt on his goodly acres; and with him, directing his household,    60
Gentle Evangeline lived, his child, and the pride of the village.
Stalworth and stately in form was the man of seventy winters;
Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is covered with snow-flakes;
White as the snow were his locks, and his cheeks as brown as the oak-leaves.
Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen summers.    65
Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by the wayside,
Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown shade of her tresses!
Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that feed in the meadows.
When in the harvest heat she bore to the reapers at noontide
Flagons of home-brewed ale, ah! fair in sooth was the maiden.    70
Fairer was she when, on Sunday morn, while the bell from its turret
Sprinkled with holy sounds the air, as the priest with his hyssop
Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters blessings upon them,
Down the long street she passed, with her chaplet of beads and her missal,
Wearing her Norman cap, and her kirtle of blue, and the ear-rings,    75
Brought in the olden time from France, and since, as an heirloom,
Handed down from mother to child, through long generations.
But a celestial brightness — a more ethereal beauty —
Shone on her face and encircled her form, when, after confession,
Homeward serenely she walked with God’s benediction upon her.    80
When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.

  Firmly builded with rafters of oak, the house of the farmer
Stood on the side of a hill commanding the sea; and a shady
Sycamore grew by the door, with a woodbine wreathing around it.
Rudely carved was the porch, with seats beneath; and a footpath    85
Led through an orchard wide, and disappeared in the meadow.
Under the sycamore-tree were hives overhung by a penthouse,
Such as the traveller sees in regions remote by the roadside,
Built o’er a box for the poor, or the blessed image of Mary.
Farther down, on the slope of the hill, was the well with its moss-grown    90
Bucket, fastened with iron, and near it a trough for the horses.
Shielding the house from storms, on the north, were the barns and the farmyard.
There stood the broad-wheeled wains and the antique ploughs and the harrows;
There were the folds for the sheep; and there, in his feathered seraglio,
Strutted the lordly turkey, and crowed the cock, with the selfsame    95
Voice that in ages of old had startled the penitent Peter.
Bursting with hay were the barns, themselves a village. In each one
Far o’er the gable projected a roof of thatch; and a staircase,
Under the sheltering eaves, led up to the odorous corn-loft.
There too the dove-cot stood, with its meek and innocent inmates    100
Murmuring ever of love; while above in the variant breezes
Numberless noisy weathercocks rattled and sang of mutation.

  Thus, at peace with God and the world, the farmer of Grand-Pré
Lived on his sunny farm, and Evangeline governed his household.
Many a youth, as he knelt in church and opened his missal,    105
Fixed his eyes upon her as the saint of his deepest devotion;
Happy was he who might touch her hand or the hem of her garment!
Many a suitor came to her door, by the darkness befriended,
And, as he knocked and waited to hear the sound of her footsteps,
Knew not which beat the louder, his heart or the knocker of iron;    110
Or at the joyous feast of the Patron Saint of the village,
Bolder grew, and pressed her hand in the dance as he whispered
Hurried words of love, that seemed a part of the music.
But, among all who came, young Gabriel only was welcome;
Gabriel Lajeunesse, the son of Basil the blacksmith,    115
Who was a mighty man in the village, and honored of all men;
For, since the birth of time, throughout all ages and nations,
Has the craft of the smith been held in repute by the people.
Basil was Benedict’s friend.