The young girl hushed on her lips a groan,
But through her tears a strange light shone,--
The solemn joy of her heart's release
To own and cherish its love in peace.
"Dearest!" she whispered, under breath,
"Life was a lie, but true is death.
"The love I hid from myself away
Shall crown me now in the light of day.
"My ears shall never to wooer list,
Never by lover my lips be kissed.
"Sacred to thee am I henceforth,
Thou in heaven and I on earth!"
She came and stood by her sister's bed
"Hall of the Heron is dead!" she said.
"The wind and the waves their work have done,
We shall see him no more beneath the sun.
"Little will reek that heart of thine,
It loved him not with a love like mine.
"I, for his sake, were he but here,
Could hem and 'broider thy bridal gear,
"Though hands should tremble and eyes be wet,
And stitch for stitch in my heart be set.
"But now my soul with his soul I wed;
Thine the living, and mine the dead!"
1871.
MARGUERITE.
MASSACHUSETTS BAY, 1760.
Upwards of one thousand of the Acadian peasants forcibly taken from
their homes on the Gaspereau and Basin of Minas were assigned to the
several towns of the Massachusetts colony, the children being bound by
the authorities to service or labor.
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