in his parish, 595
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, 600
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. 605
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 610
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, 615
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 of shining smoke uprose, and flashes of flame were
Thrust through their folds and withdrawn, like the quivering hands of a martyr. 620
Then, as the wind seized the gleeds and the burning thatch, and, uplifting,
Whirled them aloft through the air, at once from a hundred house-tops
Started the sheeted smoke with flashes of flame intermingled.

These things beheld in dismay the crowd on the shore and on shipboard. 
Speechless at first they stood, then cried aloud in their anguish, 625
“We shall behold no more our homes in the village of Grand-Pre!”
Loud on a sudden the cocks began to crow in the farmyards,
Thinking the day had dawned; and anon the lowing of cattle
Came on the evening breeze, by the barking of dogs interrupted. 
Then rose a sound of dread, such as startles the sleeping encampments 630
Far in the western prairies of forests that skirt the Nebraska,
When the wild horses affrighted sweep by with the speed of the whirlwind,
Or the loud bellowing herds of buffaloes rush to the river. 
Such was the sound that arose on the night, as the herds and the horses
Broke through their folds and fences, and madly rushed o’er the meadows. 635