Whirled them aloft through the air, at once from a hundred housetops

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,

"We shall behold no more our homes in the village of Grand-Pré!"

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

Far in the western prairies or 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.

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.

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.

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,

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 seaside,

Having the glare of the burning village for funeral torches,

But without bell or book, they buried the farmer of Grand-Pré.

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.

'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 that tide the ships sailed out of the harbor,

Leaving behind them the dead on the shore, and the village in ruins.