In that delightful land which is washed by the Delaware 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,

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And the streets still reëcho 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 René 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.

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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 the mountain's top the rainy mists of the morning

Roll away, and afar we behold the landscape below us,

1 I fear that I cannot establish by any historic proof the identity of the old building you speak of in your kind letter, with that in which Evangeline found Gabriel. A great many years ago, strolling through the streets of Philadelphia, I passed an old almshouse within high brick walls, and with trees growing in its enclosure. The quiet and seclusion of the place. impressed me deeply. This was long before the poem was written and before I had heard the tradition on which it was founded. But remembering the place, I chose it for the final scene. (LONGFELLOW, in a letter to Miss E. S. Phelps, March 12, 1876; Life, vol. iii, pp. 259, 260.)

This visit to Philadelphia was made fifty years before, in 1826, when Longfellow was waiting at New York for the ship which was to take him on his first trip to Europe.

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.

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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 death-like 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.

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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.

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 seemed 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, in-
deed, to behold there

Gleams of celestial light encircle her forehead with splendor,

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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, 660

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,

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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.

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,

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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,

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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.

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All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the sorrow,

Truly shape and fashion these;

Leave no yawning gaps between; Think not, because no man sees,

Such things will remain unseen.

In the elder days of Art,

Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part;

For the Gods see everywhere.

20

RESIGNATION 1

THERE is no flock, however watched and

tended,

But one dead lamb is there!

There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, But has one vacant chair!

The air is full of farewells to the dying,
And mournings for the dead;

The heart of Rachel, for her children cry

ing,

Will not be comforted!

Let us be patient! These severe afflictions
Not from the ground arise,2

But oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise.

ΙΟ

We see but dimly through the mists and

vapors;

Amid these earthly damps

What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers May be heaven's distant lamps.

1 See the Life of Longfellow, vol. ii, pp. 129-131, on the death of Fanny Longfellow and her burial, September 11 and 12, 1848; and the entry in Longfellow's Journal a month later, November 12: An inappeasable longing to see her comes over me at times, which I can hardly control.'

See also the letter from Edward Everett, Life, vol. ii, p. 165.

2 Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground.' Job v, 6. (Quoted by LONGFELLOW.)