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CURFEW.

Dark grow the windows,

And quenched is the fire; Sound fades into silence,All footsteps retire.

No voice in the chambers,

No sound in the hall! Sleep and oblivion

Reign over all!

II.

The book is completed,

And closed, like the day;

And the hand that has written it

Lays it away.

Dim grow its fancies,

Forgotten they lie;

Like coals in the ashes,

They darken and die.

Song sinks into silence,
The story is told,

The windows are darkened,

The hearth-stone is cold.

Darker and darker

The black shadows fall;

Sleep and oblivion

Reign over all.

EVANGELINE,

A TALE OF ACADIE.

1847.

[THE story of "Evangeline" is founded on a painful occurrence which took place in the early period of British colonization in the northern part of America.

In the year 1713, Acadia, or as it is now named, Nova Scotia, was ceded to Great Britain by the French. The wishes of the inhabitants seem to have been little consulted in the change, and they with great difficulty were induced to take the oaths of allegiance to the British government. Some time after this, war having again broken out between the French and British in Canada, the Acadians were accused of having assisted the French, from whom they were descended, and connected by many ties of friendship, with provisions and ammunition, at the siege of Beau Sejour. Whether the accusation was founded on fact or not, has not been satisfactorily ascertained; the result, however, was most disastrous to the primitive, simple-minded Acadians. The British government ordered them to be removed from their native colony, and dispersed throughout the other colonies, at a distance from their much loved land. This resolution was not communicated to the inhabitants till measures had been matured to carry it into immediate effect; when the Governor of the colony, having issued a summons, calling the whole people to a meeting, informed them that their lands, tenements, and cattle of all kinds were forfeited to the British crown, that he had orders to remove them in vessels to distant colonies, and they must remain in custody till their embarkation.

The poem is descriptive of the fate of some of the persons involved in these calamitous proceedings.]

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