popularity, having been translated into many languages.

E.C. Stedman styles it the "Flower of American Idyls."

"Evangeline" is a Narrative poem, since it tells a story. Some of the
world's greatest poems have been of this kind, notably the "Iliad" and the
"Odyssey" of Homer, and the "Aeneid," of Virgil. It may be also classified
as an Idyl, which is a simple, pastoral poem of no great length.

Poetry has been defined as "impassioned expression in verse or metrical
form." All modern English poetry has metre, and much of it rhyme. By
metre is meant a regular recurrence of accented syllables among unaccented
syllables. "Evangeline" is written in what is called hexameter, having
six accents to the line. An accented syllable is followed by one or two
unaccented. A line must begin with an accented syllable, the last accent
but one be followed by two unaccented syllables, and the last by one.
Representing an accented syllable by O and an unaccented syllable by a -,
the first line of the poem would be as follows:

O - - O - - O - - O - - O - - O -
This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks,

"The measure lends itself easily to the lingering melancholy which
marks a greater part of the poem."

"In reading there should be a gentle labor of the former half of the
line and gentle acceleration of the latter half."--_Scudder_.

[Illustration: NOVA SCOTIA AND VICINITY.]