Meanwhile, amid the gloom, by the church Evangeline lingered. 
All was silent within; and in vain at the door and the windows 510
Stood she, and listened and looked, until, overcome by emotion
“Gabriel!” cried she aloud with tremulous voice; but no answer
Came from the graves of the dead, nor the gloomier grave of the living. 
Slowly at length she returned to the tenantless house of her father. 
Smouldered the fire on the hearth, on the board was the supper untasted. 515
Empty and drear was each room, and haunted with phantoms of terror. 
Sadly echoed her step on the stair and the floor of her chamber. 
In the dead of the night she heard the disconsolate rain fall
Loud on the withered leaves of the sycamore-tree by the window. 
Keenly the lightning flashed; and the voice of the echoing thunder 520
Told her that God was in heaven and governed the world He created! 
Then she remembered the tale she had heard of the justice of Heaven;
Soothed was her troubled soul, and she peacefully slumbered till morning.

SECTION V.

Four times the sun had risen and set; and now on the fifth day
Cheerily called the cock to the sleeping maids of the farm-house. 525
Soon 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. 530
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; 535
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 540
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. 545
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 550
Joined in the sacred psalm, and the birds in the sunshine above them
Mingled their notes therewith, like voices of spirits departed.