They wind aslant

Towards Saint Amant,

Through leafy alleys

Of verdurous valleys

With merry sallies

Singing their chant :

"The roads should blossom, the roads should

bloom,

So fair a bride shall leave her home!

Should blossom and bloom with garlands gay,

So fair a bride shall pass to-day!"

It is Baptiste, and his affianced maiden,
With garlands for the bridal laden!

The sky was blue; without one cloud of gloom,

The sun of March was shining brightly,

And to the air the freshening wind gave lightly

Its breathings of perfume.

When one beholds the dusky hedges blossom,

A rustic bridal, ah! how sweet it is!

To sounds of joyous melodies,

That touch with tenderness the trembling bosom,
A band of maidens

Gayly frolicking,

A band of youngsters

Wildly rollicking!

Kissing,
Caressing,

With fingers pressing,

Till in the veriest

Madness of mirth, as they dance,

They retreat and advance,

Trying whose laugh shall be loudest

and merriest;

While the bride, with roguish eyes, Sporting with them, now escapes and cries: "Those who catch me

Married verily

This year shall be !"

And all pursue with eager haste,

And all attain what they pursue,
And touch her pretty apron fresh and new,
And the linen kirtle round her waist.

Meanwhile, whence comes it that among
These youthful maidens fresh and fair,
So joyous, with such laughing air,
Baptiste stands sighing, with silent tongue ?
And yet the bride is fair and young!
Is it Saint Joseph would say to us all,
That love, o'er-hasty, precedeth a fall?

O, no! for a maiden frail, I trow,
Never bore so lofty a brow!

What lovers! they give not a single caress

To see them so careless and cold to-day,

!

These are grand people, one would say.

What ails Baptiste ? what grief doth him oppress

It is, that, half way up the hill,

In

yon cottage, by whose walls
Stand the cart-house and the stalls,

Dwelleth the blind orphan still,
Daughter of a veteran old;

And you must know, one year ago,
That Margaret, the young and tender,

Was the village pride and splendor,
And Baptiste her lover bold.
Love, the deceiver, them ensnared ;
For them the altar was prepared;

But alas! the summer's blight,
The dread disease that none can stay,
The pestilence that walks by night,
Took the young bride's sight away.

?

All at the father's stern command was changed; Their peace was gone, but not their love estranged. Wearied at home, ere long the lover fled;

Returned but three short days ago,

The golden chain they round him throw,
He is enticed, and onward led

То marry Angela, and yet

Is thinking ever of Margaret.

Then suddenly a maiden cried,

"Anna, Theresa, Mary, Kate!

Here comes the cripple Jane !" And by a foun

tain's side

A woman, bent and gray with years,
Under the mulberry-trees appears,
And all towards her run, as fleet
As had they wings upon their feet.

It is that Jane, the cripple Jane,
Is a soothsayer, wary and kind.