Mirèio, a Provençal Poem

CANTO VII.

The Old Men.

FIXING a troubled eye on the old man,
Vincen to Master Ambroi thus began,
The while a mighty wind, the poplars bending,
Its howl unto the poor lad’s voice was lending:
“I am mad, father, as I oft of late
Have said. Thinkest thou I’m jesting when I say’t?”

Before his nut-shell cot the Rhone beside
Sat Ambroi on a fallen trunk, and plied
His trade. And, as he peeled the osier withe,
Vincen received it, and, with fingers lithe
And strong, bent the white rods to basket form,
Sitting upon the door-stone. With the storm

Of wind was the Rhone’s bosom agitated,
The waves drove seaward like a herd belated;
But round about the but an azure mere
Spread tranquilly. The billows brake not here:
A pleasant shelter gave the willow-trees,
And beavers gnawed their bitter bark in peace.

While yonder, through the deep of limpid water,
Darted at intervals the dark brown otter,
Following the silver-flashing fish. Among
The reeds and willows, pendulines had hung
Their tiny nests, white woven with the wool
Plucked from the poplar when its flowers are full.

And here the small things fluttered full of glee,
Or swang on wind-rocked stems right lazily.
Here, too, a sprightly lassie, golden-haired,—
Head like a crown-cake!—back and forward fared,
And spread on a fig-tree a fishing-net
Unwieldy and with water dripping yet.

Birds, beavers, otters, feared the maid no more
Than whispering reeds or willows of the shore.
This was the daughter of the basket-weaver,
The little Vinceneto. No one ever
Had even bored her ears, poor child! yet so
Her eyes were damson-blue, her bosom low,—

A caper-blossom by the river-side,
Wooed by the splashing of the amorous tide.
But now old Ambroi, with his long white beard
Flowing o’er all his breast, his head upreared,
And answered Vincen’s outcry: “What is’t? Mad?
You are a blockhead! that is all, my lad!”

“Ah!” said the other, “for the ass to stray,
Sweet must the mead be. But what do I say?
Thou knowest her! If she to Arles should fare,
All other maids would hide them in despair;
For, after her, I think the mould was broken.
And what say to the words herself hath spoken,

“‘You I will have!’”—“Why, naught, poor fool! say I:
Let poverty and riches make reply!”
“O father!” Vincen cried, “go, I implore thee,
To Lotus Farm, and tell them all the story!
Tell them to look for virtue, not for gain!
Tell them that I can plough a stony plain,

“Or harrow, or prune vines with any man!
Tell them their six yoke, with my guiding, can
Plough double! Tell them I revere the old;
And, if they part us for the sake of gold,
We shall both die, and they may bury us!”
“Oh, fie! But you are young who maunder thus,”

Quoth Master Ambroi. “All this talk I know.
The white hen’s egg, the chaffinch on the bough,
You’ll have the pretty bird this very minute!
Whistle, bring sugared cake, or die to win it;
Yet will the chaffinch never come, be sure,
And perch upon your finger! You are poor!”

“Plague on my poverty!” poor Vincen cried,
Tearing his hair. “Is God who hath denied
All that could make life worthy,—is He just?
And wherefore are we poor? And wherefore must
We still the refuse of the vineyard gather,
While others pluck the purple clusters rather?”

Lifting his hands, the old man sternly said,
“Weave on, and drive this folly from your head!
Shall the corn-ears rebuke the reaper, pray?
Or silly worm to God the Father say,
‘Why am I not a star in heaven to shine?’
Or shall the ox to be a drover pine,

“So to eat corn instead of straw? Nay, nay!
Through good and ill we all must hold our way.
The hand’s five fingers were unequal made.
Be you a lizard, as your Master bade,
And dwell content upon your wall apart,
And drink your sunbeam with a thankful heart!”

“I tell thee, father, I this maid adore
More than my sister, than my Maker more;
And if I have her not, ’tis death, I say!”
Then to the rough stream Vincen fled away;
While little Vinceneto burst out weeping,
Let fall her net, and near the weaver creeping,—

“O father! ere thou drive my brother wild,
Listen to me!” began the eager child:
“For where I served the master had a daughter;
And had a labourer, too, who loved and sought her,
Just as our Vincen loves Mirèio.
She was named Alis; he, Sivèstre: and so

“He laboured like a wolf because he loved.
Skilful and prompt, quiet and saving proved,
And took such care, master slept tranquilly;
But once—mark, father, how perverse men be!—
One morning master’s wife, as it befell,
O’erheard Sivèstre his love to Alis tell.

“So when at dinner all the men were sitting,
The master gave Sivèstre a wrathful greeting.
‘Traitor!’ he cried, with his eyes all aglow,
‘You are discovered! Take your wage, and go!’
We looked at one another in dismay,
As the good servant rose, and went his way.

“Thereafter, for three weeks, when we were working,
We used to see him round the farmstead lurking,—
A sorry sight; for all his clothes were torn,
And his face very pale and wild and worn.
And oft at eve he to the trellis came,
And called the little mistress by her name.

“Erelong the hay-rick at its corners four
Burnt all a-flame. And, father, something more!
They drew a drownèd man out of the well.”
Then Ambroi, in gruff tones half-audible,
“A little child a little trouble gives,
And more and more for every year he lives.”

Therewith put his long spatterdashes on
Which he himself had made in days bygone,
His hobnailed shoes, and long red cap, and so
Straightway set forth upon the road to Crau.
’Twas harvest-time, the eve of St. John’s day,
The hedgerow paths were crowded all the way

With troops of dusty, sunburnt mountaineers
Hired for the reaping of the golden ears.
In fig-wood quivers were their sickles borne,
Slung to a belt across the shoulder worn.
By twos and twos they came, and every pair
Had its own sheaf-binder. And carts were there,

Bearing the weary elders, and beside
The pipes and tambourines with ribbons tied.
Anon by fields of beardless wheat they passed,
Lashed into billows by the noisy blast;
And “Mon Dieu, but that is noble grain!”
They cried. “What tufts of ears! There shall we gain

“Right pleasant reaping! The wind bows them over;
But see you not how quickly they recover?
Is all the wheat-crop of Provence thus cheering,
Grandfather?” asked a youth, old Ambroi nearing.
“The red is backward still,” he made reply;
“But, if this windy weather last, deem I

“Sickles will fail us ere the work be done.
How like three stars the Christmas candles shone!
That was a blessed sign of a good year!”
“Now, grandfather, may the good God thee hear,
And in thy granary the same fulfil!”
So Ambroi and the reapers chatted still

In friendly wise, under the willows wending;
For these as well to Lotus Farm were tending.
It also chanced that Master Ramoun went
That eve to hearken for the wheat’s complaint
Against the wind, wild waster of the grain;
And, as he strode over the yellow plain

From north to south, he heard the golden corn
Murmuring, “See the ills that we have borne,
Master, from this great gale. It spills our seed
And blurs our bloom!”—“Put on your gloves of reed,”
Sang others, “else the ants will be more fleet,
And rob us of our all but hardened wheat.

“When will the sickles come?” And Ramoun turned
Toward the trees, and even then discerned
The reapers rising in the distance dim;
Who, as they nearer drew, saluted him
With waving sickles flashing in the sun.
Then roared the master, “Welcome, every one!

“A very God-send!” cried he, loud and long;
And soon the sheaf-binders about him throng,
Saying, “Shake hands! Why, Holy Cross, look here!
What heaps of sheaves, good master, will this year
Cumber your treading-floor!”—“Mayhap,” said he:
“We cannot alway judge by what we see.

“Till all is trod, the truth will not be known.
I have known years that promised,” he went on,
“Eighty full bushels to the acre fairly,
And yielded in their stead a dozen barely.
Yet let us be content!” And, with a smile,
He shook their hands all round in friendly style,

And gossiped with old Ambroi affably.
So entered all the homestead path, and he
Called out once more, “Come forth, Mirèio mine:
Prepare the chiccory and draw the wine!”
And she right lavishly the table spread;
While Ramoun first him seated at its head,

And the rest in their order, for the lunch.
Forthwith the labourers began to crunch
Hard-crusted bread their sturdy teeth between,
And hail the salad made of goats-beard green;
While fair as an oat-leaf the table shone,
And in superb profusion heaped thereon

Were odorous cheese, onions and garlic hot,
Grilled egg-plant, fiery peppers, and what not,
To sting the palate. Master Ramoun poured
The wine, king in the field and at the board;
Raising his mighty flagon now and then,
And calling for a bumper on the men.

“To keep the sickles keen on stony ground,
They must be often whetted, I have found.”
The reapers held their goblets, bidden so,
And red and clear the wine began to flow.
“Ay, whet the blades!” the cheery master cries;
And furthermore gives order in this wise:

“Now eat your fill, and all your strength restore.
But go thereafter, as you used of yore,
And branches in the copse-wood cut, and bring
In fagots; thus a great heap gathering.
And when ’tis night, my lads, we’ll do the rest!
For this the fête is of Saint John the blest,—

“Saint John the reaper, and the friend of God.”
So spake the lord of all these acres broad.
The high and noble art of husbandry,
The rule of men, none better knew than he,
Or how to make a golden harvest grow
From dark sods moistened by the toiler’s brow.

A grave and simple master of the soil,
Whose frame was bending now with years and toil;
Yet oft, of old, when floors were full of wheat,
Glowing with pride he had performed the feat,
Before his youthful corps, upright to stand
Bearing two pecks upon each horny hand.

He could the influence of the moon rehearse;
Tell when her look is friendly, when adverse;
When she will raise the sap, and when depress;
The coming weather from her halo guess,
And from her silver-pale or fiery face.
Clear signs to him were birds and keen March days,

And mouldy bread and noisome August fogs,
St. Clara’s dawn, the rainbow-hued sun-dogs,
Wet seasons, times of drought and frost and plenty.
Full oft, in pleasant years, a-ploughing went he,
With six fair, handsome beasts. And, verily,
Myself have seen, and it was good to see,

The soil part silently before the share,
And its dark bosom to the sun lay bare:
The comely mules, ne’er from the furrow breaking,
Toiled on as though they care and thought were taking
For what they did. With muzzles low they went,
And arching necks like bows when these are bent,

And hasted not, nor lagged. Followed along—
Eye on the mules, and on his lips a song—
The ploughman, with one handle only guiding.
So, in the realm where we have seen presiding
Our old friend Ramoun, flourished every thing,
And he bare sceptre like a very king.

Now says he grace, and lifts his eyes above,
And signs the holy cross. The labourers move
Away to make the bonfire ready. These
Bring kindling; those, the boughs of dark pine-trees;
And the old men alone at table staying,
A silence fell. But Ambroi brake it, saying,—

“For counsel, Ramoun, am I come to thee;
For I am in a great perplexity
Thou only canst resolve. Cure see I none.
Thou knowest, Master, that I have a son
Who has been passing good until this day,—
It were ingratitude aught else to say;

“But there are flaws even in precious stones,
And tender lambs will have convulsions,
And the still waters are perfidious ever:
So my mad boy,—thou wilt believe it never,—
He loves the daughter of a rich freeholder,
And swears he will in his embrace enfold her!

“Ay, swears he will, the maniac! And his love
And his despair my soul to terror move.
I showed him all his folly, be thou sure,
And how wealth gains, and poverty grows poor
In this hard world. In vain! He would but call,
‘Cost what it may, tell thou her parents all,—

“‘Tell them to look for virtue, not for gain!
Tell them that I can plough a stony plain,
Or harrow, or prune vines with any man!
Tell them their six yoke, with my guiding, can
Plough double! Tell them I revere the old;
And, if they part us for the sake of gold,

“‘We shall both die, and need but burial.’
Now, Master Ramoun, I have told thee all.
Shall I, clad in my rags, for this maid sue,
Or leave my son to die of sorrow?”—“Whew!”
The other. “To such wind spread thou no sail!
Nor he, nor she, will perish of this ail.

“So much, good friend, I say in utmost faith.
Nor would I, Ambroi, fret myself to death
If I were thou; but, seeing him so mad,
I would say plainly, ‘Calm your mind, my lad!
For if you raise a tempest by your passions,
I’ll teach you with a cudgel better fashions!’

“If an ass, Ambroi, for more fodder bray,
Throw him none down, but let thy bludgeon play.
Provençal families in days bygone
Were healthy, brave, and evermore at one,
And strong as plane-trees when a storm befell.
They had their strifes, indeed,—we know it well;

“But, when returned the holy Christmas eve,
The grandsire all his children would receive
At his own board, under a star-sown tent;
And ceased the voice of strife and all dissent,
When, lifting hands that wrinkled were and trembled,
He blessed the generations there assembled.

“Moreover, he who is a father truly
Will have his child yield him obedience duly:
The flock that drives the shepherd, soon or late,
Will meet a wolf and a disastrous fate.
When we were young, had any son withstood
His father, he, belike, had shed his blood!”

“Thou wilt kill me then, father! It is I
Whom Vincen worships thus despairingly;
And before God and our most holy Mother,
I give my soul to him, and to no other!”
A deathlike hush followed Mirèio’s word.
The wife of Ramoun was the first who stirred.

Upspringing with clasped hands and utterance wild,
“Your speech is an atrocious insult, child!
Your love’s a thorn that long hath stung us deep.
Alari, the owner of a thousand sheep,
You sent away; and keeper Veran too,
Disgusted with your scorn, his suit withdrew;

“Also the wealthy herdsman, Ourrias,
You treated as a dog and a scapegrace!
Tramp through the country with your beggar, then!
Herd with strange women and with outcast men!
And cook your pot with fortune-telling crones
Under a bridge mayhap, upon three stones.

“Go, gypsy, you are free!” the mother said;
Nor stayed Ramoun her pitiless tirade,
Though his eye like a taper burned. But now
The lightning flashed under his shaggy brow,
And his wrath brake, all barriers overbearing,
Like swollen torrent down a mountain tearing.

“Your mother’s right!” he said. “Go! travel yonder,
And take the tempest with you where you wander!
Nay, but you shall not! Here you shall remain,
Though I should bind you with an iron chain,
Or hold like a rebellious jumart, look!
Dragged by the nostrils with an iron hook!

“Yea, though you pine with sickly melancholy,
Till from your cheeks the roses perish wholly,
Or fade as snow fades when the sun is hot
On the hill-sides in spring, go shall you not!
And mark, Mirèio! Sure as the hearth’s ashes
Rest on that brick, and sure as the Rhone dashes

“Above its banks when it is overfull,
And sure as that’s a lamp, and here I rule,
You’ll see him never more!” The table leapt
Beneath his fist. Mirèio only wept.
Her heavy tears like dew on smallage rain,
Or grapes o’er ripe before a hurricane.

“And who,” resumed the old man, blind with rage,—
“Curse it!—I say, who, Ambroi, will engage
Thou didst not with the younger ruffian plot
This vile abduction, yonder in thy cot?”
Then Ambroi also sprang infuriate,—
“Good God!” he cried, “we are of low estate;

“But let me tell you that our hearts are high!
No shame, no stain, is honest poverty!
I’ve served my country forty years or more
On shipboard, and I know the cannon’s roar,
So young that I could scarce a boat-hook swing
When on my first cruise I went wandering.

“I’ve seen Melinda’s empire far away,
And with Suffren have haunted India,
And done my duty over all the world
In the great wars, where’er our flag unfurled
That southern chief who passed his conquering hand
With one red sweep from Spain to Russian land,

“And at whose drum-beat every clime was quaking
Like aspen-tree before the tempest shaking;
Horrors of boarding, shipwreck’s agonies,—
These have I known, and darker things than these,
Days than the sea more bitter. Being poor,
No bit of motherland might I secure.

“Scorned of the rich, I might not dress the sward,
But suffer forty years without reward.
We ate dog’s food, on the hoar-frost we lay:
Weary of life, we rushed into the fray,
And so upbore the glorious name of France.
But no one holds it in remembrance!”

His caddis-cloak upon the ground he threw,
And spake no more. “What great thing wilt thou do?”
Asked Ramoun, and his tone was full of scorn.
“I, too, have heard the cannon-thunder borne
Along the valley of Toulon, have seen
The bridge of Arcole stormed, and I have been

“In Egypt when her sands were red with gore;
But we, like men, when those great wars were o’er,
Returning, fiercely fell upon the soil,
And dried our very marrow up with toil
The day began long ere the eastern glow,
The rising moon surprised us at the hoe.

“They say the Earth is generous. It is true!
But, like a nut-tree, naught she gives to you
Unless well-beaten. And if all were known,
Each clod of landed ease thus hardly won,
He who should number them would also know
The sweat-drops that have fallen from my brow.

“And must I, by Ste. Anne of Apt, be still?
Like satyr toil, of siftings eat my fill,
That all the homestead may grow wealthy, and
Myself before the world with honour stand,
Yet go and give my daughter to a tramp,
A vagabond, a straw-loft-sleeping scamp?

“God’s thunder strike you and your dog! Begone!
But I,” the master said, “will keep my swan.”
These were his last rough words; and steadily
Ambroi arose, and his cloak lifted he,
And only rested on his staff to say,
“Adieu! Mayst thou not regret this day!

“And may the good God and his angels guide
The orange-laden bark across the tide!”
Then, as he passed into the falling night,
From the branch-heap arose a ruddy light,
And one long tongue of flame the wanderer sees,
Curled like a horn by the careering breeze;

And round it reapers dancing blithesomely,
With pulsing feet, and haughty heads and free
Thrown back, and faces by the bonfire lit,
Loud crackling as the night-wind fanneth it.
The sound of coals that to the brazier fall
Blends with the fife-notes fine but musical,

And merry as the song of the hedge-sparrow.
Ah, but it thrills the old Earth to her marrow
When thou dost visit her, beloved St. John!
The sparks went whirling upward, and hummed on
The tabor gravely and incessantly,
Like the low surging of a tranquil sea.

Then did the dusky troop their sickle wave,
And three great leaps athwart the flame they gave,
And cloves of odorous garlic from a string
Upon the glowing embers they did fling,
And holy herb and John’s-wort bare anigh;
And these were purified and blessed thereby.

Then “Hail, St. John!” thrice rose a deafening shout;
And hills and plain, illumined round about,
Sparkled as though the dark were showering stars.
And sure the Saint, above the heaven’s blue bars,
The breath of all this incense doth inhale,
Wafted aloft by the unconscious gale.

CANTO VIII.

La Crau.

THE rage of the mighty lioness
Who shall restrain?
She came to her den, and she found it bare:
A Moorish huntsman had entered there.
The huntsman came, and the whelp is gone.
Away through the canebrake they have flown,
Galloping far at a headlong pace.
To follow—vain!
She roars awhile in her deep despite,
Then rises and courses, lank and light,
Over the hills of Barbary.
As a maid bereft of her love is she.

Mirèio lay upon her little bed,
Clasping in both her hands her burning head.
Dim was the chamber; for the stars alone
Saw the maid weep, and heard her piteous moan,—
“Help, Mother Mary, in my sore distress!
Oh, cruel fate! Oh, father pitiless,

“Who tread me underfoot! Could you but see
My heart’s mad tumult, you would pity me!
You used to call me darling long ago,
And now you bend me to the yoke as though
I were a vicious colt that you were fain
To break. Why does the sea not flood this plain?

“I would the wealthy lands that make me weep
Were hid for evermore in the great deep!
Ah, had I in a serpent’s hole been born,
Of some poor vagrant, I were less forlorn!
For then if any lad, my Vincen even,
Had asked my hand, mayhap it had been given.

“O Vincen, who so handsome are and true!
If only they would let me go to you,
I’d cling as clings the tender ivy-vine
Unto the oak: I would not ever pine
For food, but life in your caresses find,
And drink at wayside pools with happy mind.”

So on her pallet the sweet maid lay sobbing,
Fire in her heart and every vein a-throbbing,
And all the happy time remembering—
Oh, calm and happy!—of her love’s fair spring,
Until a word in Vincen’s very tone
Comes to her memory. “’Twas you, my own,—

“’Twas you,” she cried, “came one day to the farm,
And said, ‘If ever thou dost come to harm,—
If any lizard, wolf, or poisonous snake,
Ever should wound thee with its fang,—betake
Thyself forthwith to the most holy Saints,
Who cure all ills and hearken all complaints.’

“And sure I am in trouble now,” she said:
“Therefore we’ll go, and come back comforted.”
Then lightly from her white cot glided she,
And straightway opened, with a shining key,
The wardrobe where her own possessions lay:
It was of walnut wood, and carven gay.

Here were her childhood’s little treasures all:
Here sacredly she kept the coronal
Worn at her first communion; and thereby
A faded sprig of lavender and dry,
And a wax taper almost burned, as well,
Once blessed, the distant thunder to dispel.

A smart red petticoat she first prepares,
Which she herself had quilted into squares,—
Of needlework a very masterpiece;
And round her slender waist she fastens this;
And over it another, finer one
She draws; and next doth a black bodice don,

And fasten firmly with a pin of gold.
On her white shoulders, her long hair unrolled,
Curling, and loose like a dark garment, lay,
Which, gathering up, she swiftly coils away
Under a cap of fine, transparent lace;
Then decks the veilèd tresses with all grace,

Thrice with a ribbon blue encircling them,—
The fair young brow’s Arlesian diadem.
Lastly, she adds an apron to the rest,
And folds a muslin kerchief o’er her breast.
In her dire haste, alone, the child forgat
The shallow-crowned, broad-brimmed Provençal hat,

That might have screened her from the mortal heat.
But, so arrayed, crept forth on soundless feet
Adown the wooden staircase, in her hand
Her shoes, undid the heavy door-bar, and
Her soul unto the watchful saints commended,
As away like a wind of night she wended.

It was the hour when constellations keep
Their friendly watch o’er followers of the deep.
The eye of St. John’s eagle flashed afar,
As it alighted on a burning star,
One of the three where the evangelist
Hath his alternate dwelling. Cloud nor mist

Defaced the dark serene of star-lit sky;
But the great chariot of souls went by
On wingèd wheels along the heavenly road,
Bearing away from earth its blessed load.
Far up the shining steeps of Paradise,
The circling hills behold it as it flies.

Mirèio hasted no less anxiously
Than Magalouno in the days gone by,
Who searched the wood with sad, inquiring glance
For her lost lover, Pèire of Provence,
When cruel waves divorced him from her side,
And left her lone and wretched. Soon espied

The maid, upon the boundary of the lea,
Folds where her sire’s own shepherds could she see
Already milking. Some the sheep compelled,
Against the pen-side by the muzzle held,
To suckle quietly their tawny lambs.
Always arose the bleat of certain dams;

While other childless ones the shepherds guide
Toward the milker. On a stone astride,
Mute as the very night, sits he, and dim;
While, pressed from swollen udders, a long stream
Of warm fine milk into the pail goes leaping,
The white froth high about its border creeping.

The sheep-dogs all in tranquil slumber lay.
The fine, large dogs—as white as lilies they—
Stretched round the enclosure, muzzles deep in thyme.
And peace was everywhere, and summer clime;
And o’er the balmy country, far and near,
Brooded a heaven full of stars, and clear.

So in the stillness doth Mirèio dash
Along the hurdles, like a lightning flash,
Lifting a wailing cry that never varies,—
“Will none go with me to the holy Maries,
Of all the shepherds?” They and the sheep hear it,
And see the maiden flitting like a spirit,

And huddle up, and bow their heads, as though
Smit by a sudden gale. The farm-dogs know
Her voice, but never stir her flight to stay.
And now is she already far away,
Threads the dwarf-oaks, and like a partridge rushes
Over the holly and the camphyre bushes,

Her feet scarce touching earth. And now she passes
Curlews in flocks asleep amid the grasses
Under the oaks, who, roused from slumber soft,
Arise in haste, and wing their flight aloft
Over the sad and barren plain; and all
Together “Cour’li! cour’li! cour’li!” call,

Until the Dawn, with her dew-glittering tresses,
From mountain-top to level slow progresses,
Sweetly saluted by the tufted lark,
Soaring and singing o’er the caverns dark
In the great hills, whose pinnacles each one
Appear to sway before the rising sun.

Then was revealed La Crau, the bare, the waste,
The rough with stones, the ancient, and the vast,
Whose proud old giants, if the tale be true,
Once dreamed, poor fools, the Almighty to subdue
With but a ladder and their shoulders brave;
But He them ’whelmed in a destroying wave.

Already had the rebels dispossest
The Mount of Victory of his tall crest,
Lifted with lever from its place; and sure
They would have helped it high upon Ventour,
As they had piled the rugged escarpment
They from the Alpine range had earlier rent.

But God his hand extended o’er the plain:
The north-west wind, thunder, and hurricane
He loosed; and these arose like eagles three
From mountain clefts and caverns and the sea,
Wrapped in thick fog, with fury terrible,
And on the marble pile together fell.

Then were the rude Colossi overthrown;
And a dense covering of pudding-stone
Spread o’er La Crau, the desolate, the vast,
The mute, the bare to every stormy blast;
Who wears the hideous garment to this day.
Meanwhile Mirèio farther speeds away

From the home-lands, while the sun’s ardent glare
Makes visible all round the shimmering air;
And shrill cicalas, grilling in the grass,
Beat madly evermore their tiny brass.
Nor tree for shade was there, nor any beast:
The many flocks, that in the winter feast.

On the short, savoury grasses of the moor,
Had climbed the Alps, where airs are cool and pure,
And pastures fadeless. Yet the maid doth fly
Under the pouring fire of a June sky,—
Fly, fly, like lightning. Lizards large and gray
Peep from their holes, and to each other say,

“She must be mad who thus the shingle clears,
Under a heat that sets the junipers
A-dancing on the hills; on Crau, the sands.”
The praying mantes lift beseeching hands,
“Return, return, O pilgrim!” murmuring,
“For God hath opened many a crystal spring;

“And shady trees hath planted, so the rose
To save upon your cheeks. Why, then, expose
Your brow to the unpitying summer heat?
Vainly as well the butterflies entreat.
For her the wings of love, the wind of faith,
Bear on together, as the tempest’s breath

White gulls astray over the briny plains
Of Agui-Morto. Utter sadness reigns
In scattered sheep-cots of their tenants left,
And overrun with salicorne. Bereft
In the hot desert, seemed the maid to wake,
And see nor spring nor pool her thirst to slake,

And slightly shuddered. “Great St. Gent!” she cried,
“O hermit of the Bausset mountain-side!
O fair young labourer, who to thy plough
Didst harness the fierce mountain-wolf ere now,
And in the flinty rock, recluse divine,
Didst open springs of water and of wine,

“And so revive thy mother, perishing
Of heat! like me, when they were slumbering,
Thou didst forsake thy household, and didst fare
Alone with God through mountain-passes, where
Thy mother found thee! For me, too, dear Saint,
Open a spring; for I am very faint,

“And my feet by the hot stones blisterèd!”
Then, in high heaven, heard what Mirèio said
The good St. Gent: and soon she doth discover
A well far off, with a bright stone laid over;
And, like a marten through a shower of rain,
Speeds through the flaming sun-rays, this to gain.

The well was old, with ivy overrun—
A watering-place for flocks; and from the sun
Scarce by it sheltered sat a little boy,
With basket-full of small white snails for toy.
With his brown hands, he one by one withdrew them,
The tiny harvest-snails; and then sang to them,—

“Snaily, snaily, little nun,
Come out of the cell, come into the sun!
Show me your horns without delay,
Or I’ll tear your convent-walls away.”

Then the fair maid of Crau, when she had dipped
Her burning lips into the pail, and sipped,
Quickly upraised a lovely, rosy face,
And, “Little one! what dost thou here?” she says.
A pause. “Pick snailies from the stones and grass?”
“Thou hast guessed right!” the urchin’s answer was.

“Here in my basket have I—see, how many!
Nuns, harvest-snails, and these, as good as any!”
“And thou dost eat them”—“Nay, not I,” replied he;
“But mother carries them to Arles on Friday,
And sells them; and brings back nice, tender bread.
Thou wilt have been to Arles?”—“Never!” she said.

“What, never been to Arles! But I’ve been there!
Ah, poor young lady! Couldst thou see how fair
And large a city that same Arles is grown!
She covers all the seven mouths of the Rhone.
Upon the islands of the great salt-mere
Her cattle graze: wild horses doth she rear.

“And in one summer, corn enough doth grow,
To feed her seven full years, if need were so.
She’s fishermen who fish on every sea,—
Seamen who front the storms right valiantly
Of distant waters.” Thus with pretty pride
The boy his sunny country glorified,

In golden speech;—her blue and heaving ocean;
Her Mont Majour, that keeps the mills in motion,—
These with soft olives ever feeding fully;
Her bitterns in the marshes booming dully.
One thing alone, thou lovely, dusky town,
The child forgat,—of all thy charms the crown;

He said not, fruitful Arles, that thy fine air
Gives to thy daughters beauty rich and rare,
As grapes to autumn, or as wings to bird,
Or fragrance to the hill-sides. Him had heard
The country maiden, sadly, absently.
But now, “Bright boy, wilt thou not go with me?”

She said; “for, ere the frogs croak in the willow,
My foot must planted be beyond the billow.
Come with me! I must o’er the Rhone be rowed,
And left there in the keeping of my God!”
“Now, then,” the urchin cried, “thou poor, dear lady,
Thou art in luck! for we are fishers,” said he;

“And thou shalt sleep under our tent this night,
Pitched in the shadow of the poplars white,
So keeping all thy pretty clothing on;
And father, with the earliest ray of dawn,
In our own little boat will put thee o’er!”
But she, “Do not detain me, I implore:

“I am yet strong enough this night to wander.”
“Now God forbid!” was the lad’s prompt rejoinder:
“Wouldst thou see, then, the crowd of sorry shapes
From the Trau-de-la-Capo that escapes?
For if they meet thee, be thou sure of this,—
They’ll drag thee with them into the abyss!”

“Trau-de-la-Capo! What may that be, pray?”
“I’ll tell thee, lady, as we pick our way
Over the stones.” And forthwith he began:
“Once was a treading-floor that overran
With wealth of sheaves. To-morrow, on thy ways,
Thou’lt pass, upon the riverside, the place.

“Trod by a circle of Camargan steeds,
The tall sheaves have been yielding up their seeds
To the incessant hoofs, a month or more.
No pause, no rest; and, on the treading-floor,
Dusty and winding, still the eye perceives
A very mountain of untrodden sheaves.

“Also, the weather was so fiercely hot,
The floor would burn like fire; and rested not
The wooden forks that more sheaves yet supplied
While at the horses’ muzzles there were shied
Clusters of bearded ears unceasingly,—
They flew as arrows from the cross-bow fly.

“And on St. Peter’s day and on St. Charles’
Rang, and rang vainly, all the bells of Arles:
There was no Sunday and no holiday
For the unhappy horses: but alway
The heavy tramp around the weary road,
Alway the pricking of the keeper’s goad,

“Alway the orders issued huskily,
As in the fiery whirlwind still stood he.
The greedy master of the treaders white
Had even muzzled them, in his despite.
And, when Our Lady’s day in August came,
The coupled beasts were treading, all the same,

“The pilèd sheaves, foam-drenched. Their livers clung
Fast to their ribs, and their jaws drivelling hung,
When suddenly an icy, northern gale
Smit, swept the floor,—and God’s blasphemers pale.
It quakes! It parts! On a black caldron’s brink
Now stand they, and their eyes with horror sink.

“Then the sheaves whirl with fury terrible.
Pitch-forkers, keepers, keepers-aids as well,
Struggle to save them; but they naught can do:
The van, the van-goats, and the mill-stones too,
Horses and drivers, treading-floor, and master
Are swallowed up in one immense disaster!”

“You make me shudder!” poor Mirèio said.
“Ah, but that is not all, my pretty maid!
Thou thinkest me a little mad, may be:
But on the morrow thou the spot wilt see;
And carp and tench in the blue water playing,
And, in the reeds, marsh-blackbirds roundelaying.

“But on Our Lady’s day, when mounts again
The fire-crowned sun to the meridian,
Lay thee down softly, ear to earth,” said he,
“And eye a-watch, and presently thou’lt see
The gulf, at first so limpid, will begin
To darken with the shadow of the sin;

“And slowly up from the unquiet deep
A murmuring sound, like buzzing flies, will creep;
And then a tinkling, as of tiny bells,
That soon into an awful uproar swells
Among the water-weeds! Like human voices
Inside an amphora the fearsome noise is!

“And then it is the trot of wasted horses
Painfully tramping round their weary courses
Upon a hard, dry surface, evermore
Echoing like a summer threshing-floor,
Whom drives a brutal keeper, nothing loth,
And hurries them with insult and with oath.

“But, when the holy sun is sinking low,
The blasphemies turn hoarse and fainter grow,
The tinkling dies among the weeds. Far off,
The limping, sorry steed is heard to cough;
And, on the top of the tall reeds a-swinging,
Once more the blackbirds begin sweetly singing.”

So, full of chat, and with his basket laden,
Travelled the little man before the maiden;
While the descending sun with rose invests
The great blue ramparts and the golden crests
Of the hill-range, peaceful and pure and high,
Blending its outline with the evening sky.

Seemed the great orb, as he withdrew in splendour,
God’s peace unto the marshes to surrender,
And to the great lake, and the olives gray
Of the Vaulungo, and the Rhone away
There in the distance, and the reapers weary,
Who now unbend, and quaff the sea-air, cheery.

Till the boy cries that far away he sees
The home-tent’s canvas fluttering in the breeze.
“And the white poplar, dear maid, seest thou?
And brother Not, who climbs it even now?
He’s there after cicalas, be thou sure;
Or to spy me returning o’er the moor.

“Ah, now he sees us! And my sister Zeto,
Who helped him with her shoulder, turns this way too;
And seems to tell my mother that she may
Put on the bouillabaise without delay.
And mother also, I can see her leaning
Over the boat, and the fresh fish a-gleaning.”

Then, as the two made haste with one accord
To mount the dike, the lusty fisher roared,
“Now this is charming! Look this way, my wife!
Our little Andreloun, upon my life,
Will be the prince of fishers one day,” said he;
“For he has caught the queen of eels already!”

Mirèio, a Provençal Poem

About This Book

CANTO VII.

The Old Men.

CANTO VIII.

La Crau.

CANTO IX.

The Muster.

Mirèio, a Provençal Poem

About This Book

CANTO VII. The Old Men.

CANTO VIII. La Crau.

CANTO IX. The Muster.

CANTO VII.

The Old Men.

CANTO VIII.

La Crau.

CANTO IX.

The Muster.