Till she followed his green and waving plume through the forest,
And nevermore returned, nor was seen again by her people. 
Silent with wonder and strange surprise, Evangeline listened 1150
To the soft flow of her magical words, till the region around her
Seemed like enchanted ground, and her swarthy guest the enchantress. 
Slowly over the tops of the Ozark Mountains the moon rose,
Lighting the little tent, and with a mysterious splendor
Touching the sombre leaves, and embracing and filling the woodland. 1155
With a delicious sound the brook rushed by, and the branches
Swayed and sighed overhead in scarcely audible whispers. 
Filled with the thoughts of love was Evangeline’s heart, but a secret,
Subtile sense crept in of pain and indefinite terror,
As the cold, poisonous snake creeps into the nest of the swallow. 1160
It was no earthly fear.  A breath from the region of spirits
Seemed to float in the air of night; and she felt for a moment
That, like the Indian maid, she, too, was pursuing a phantom. 
With this thought she slept, and the fear and the phantom had vanished. 
Early upon the morrow the march was resumed, and the Shawnee 1165
Said, as they journeyed along,—­“On the western slope of these mountains
Dwells in his little village the Black Robe chief of the Mission. 
Much he teaches the people, and tells them of Mary and Jesus;
Loud laugh their hearts with joy, and weep with pain, as they hear him.” 
Then, with a sudden and secret emotion, Evangeline answered, 1170
“Let us go to the Mission, for there good tidings await us!”
Thither they turned their steeds; and behind a spur of the mountains,
Just as the sun went down, they heard a murmur of voices,
And in a meadow green and broad, by the bank of a river,
Saw the tents of the Christians, the tents of the Jesuit Mission. 1175
Under a towering oak, that stood in the midst of the village,
Knelt the Black Robe chief with his children.  A crucifix fastened
High on the trunk of the tree, and overshadowed by grapevines,
Looked with its agonized face on the multitude kneeling beneath it. 
This was their rural chapel.  Aloft, through the intricate arches 1180
Of its aerial roof, arose the chant of their vespers,
Mingling its notes with the soft susurrus and sighs of the branches. 
Silent, with heads uncovered, the travellers, nearer approaching,
Knelt on the swarded floor, and joined in the evening devotions. 
But when the service was done, and the benediction had fallen 1185
Forth from the hands of the priest, like seed from the hands of the sower,
Slowly the reverend man advanced to the strangers, and bade them
Welcome; and when they replied, he smiled with benignant expression,
Hearing the homelike sounds of his mother-tongue in the forest,
And with words of kindness conducted them into his