Overwhelmed with the sight, yet speechless, the priest and the maiden
Gazed on the scene of terror that reddened and widened before them;
And as they turned at length to speak to their silent companion,
Lo! from his seat he had fallen, and stretched abroad on the seashore
Motionless lay his form, from which the soul had departed. 640
Slowly the priest uplifted the lifeless head, and the maiden
Knelt at her father’s side, and wailed aloud in her terror. 
Then in a swoon she sank and lay with her head on his bosom. 
Through the long night she lay in deep, oblivious slumber;
And when she woke from the trance, she beheld a multitude near her. 645
Faces of friends she beheld, that were mournfully gazing upon her,
Pallid, with tearful eyes, and looks of saddest compassion. 
Still the blaze of the burning village illumined the landscape. 
Reddened the sky overhead, and gleamed on the faces around her,
And like the day of doom it seemed to her wavering senses. 650
Then a familiar voice she heard, as it said to the people,—­
“Let us bury him here by the sea.  When a happier season
Brings us again to our homes from the unknown land of our exile,
Then shall his sacred dust be piously laid in the churchyard.” 
Such were the words of the priest.  And there in haste by the sea-side, 655
Having the glare of the burning village for funeral torches,
But without bell or book, they buried the farmer of Grand-Pre. 
And as the voice of the priest repeated the service of sorrow,
Lo! with a mournful sound like the voice of a vast congregation,
Solemnly answered the sea, and mingled its roar with the dirges. 660
’T was the returning tide, that afar from the waste of the ocean,
With the first dawn of the day, came heaving and hurrying landward. 
Then recommenced once more the stir and noise of embarking;
And with the ebb of the tide the ships sailed out of the harbor,
Leaving behind them the dead on the shore, and the village in ruins. 665

PART THE SECOND.

SECTION I.

Many a weary year had passed since the burning of Grand-Pre. 
When on the falling tide the freighted vessels departed,
Bearing a nation, with all its household Gods, into exile,
Exile without an end, and without an example in story. 
Far asunder, on separate coasts, the Acadians landed; 670
Scattered were they, like flakes of snow, when the wind from the northeast
Strikes aslant through the fogs that darken the Banks of Newfoundland. 
Friendless, homeless, hopeless, they wandered from city to city,
From the cold lakes of the North to sultry Southern savannas—­
From the bleak shores of the sea to the lands where the Father of Waters 675
Seizes the hills in his hands, and drags them down to the ocean,
Deep in their sands to bury the scattered bones of