Mirèio/Canto X
CANTO X.
CAMARGUE.
LISTEN to me, good people of Provence,
Countrymen one and all, from Arles to Vence,
From Valensolo even to Marseilles,
And, if the heat oppress you, come, I pray,
To Durancolo1 banks, and, lying low,
Hear the maid's tale, and weep the lover's woe!
The little boat, in Audreloun's control,
Parted the water silent as a sole,
The while the enamoured maiden whom I sing,
Herself on the great Rhone adventuring,
Beside the urchin sat, and scanned the wave
Intently, with a dreamy eye and grave,
Till the boy-boatman spake: "Now knewest thou ever,
Young lady, how immense is the Rhone river?
Betwixt Camargue and Crau might holden be
Right noble jousts! That is Camargue!" said he;
"That isle so vast it can discern, I deem,
All the seven mouths of the Arlesian stream."
The rose-lights of the morn were beauteous
Upon the river, as he chatted thus.
And the tartanes,2 with snowy sails outspread,
Tranquilly glided up the stream, impelled
By the light breeze that blew from off the deep,
As by a shepherdess her milk-white sheep.
And all along the shore was noble shade
By feathery ash and silver poplar made,
Whose hoary trunks the river did reflect,
And giant limbs with wild vines all bedeckt
With ancient vines and tortuous, that upbore
Their knotty, clustered fruit the waters o'er.
Majestically calm, but wearily
And as he fain would sleep, the Rhone passed by
Like some great veteran dying. He recalls
Music and feasting in Avignon's halls
And castles, and profoundly sad is he
To lose his name and waters in the sea.
Meanwhile the enamoured maiden whom I sing
Had leaped ashore; and the boy, tarrying
Only to say, "The road that lies before
Is thine! The Saints will guide thee to the door
Of their great chapel," took his oars in hand,
And swiftly turned his shallop from the land.
Under the pouring fire of the June sky,
Like lightning doth Mirèio fly and fly.
East, west, north, south, she seems to see extend
One weary plain, savannas without end,
With glimpses of the sea, and here and there
Tamarisks lifting their light beads in air.
Golden-herb, samphire, shave-grase, soda,—these
Alone grow on the bitter prairies,
Where the black bulls in savage liberty
Rejoice, where the white horses all are free
To roam abroad and breast the briny gale,
Or air surcharged with sea-fog to inhale.
But now o'er all the marsh, dazzling to view,
Soars an immeasurable vault of blue,
Intense, profound. The only living thing
A solitary gull upon the wing
Or a gaunt hermit,3 whose dark shadow falls
Over the desert meres at intervals,
Or red-legged chevalier,4 or hern,5 wild-eyed
With crest of three white plumes upraised in pride.
But soon the sun so boats upon the plain
That the poor, weary wanderer is fain
To loose and lift her folded neckerchief,
So from the burning heat to find relief.
Yet grows the torment ever more and more;
The sun ascending higher than hefore,
Until it rides in the unshaded zenith,
And thence a very flood of fire raineth,—
As a starved lion with his eye devours
The Abyssinian desert in his course.
Now were it sweet beneath a beech to slumber!
Now, like a swarm of hornets without number,—
An angry swarm, fierce darting high and low,—
Or like the hot sparks from a grindstone, grow
The pitiless rays; and Love's poor pilgrim, worn
And gasping, and by weariness o'erborne,
Forth from her bodice draws its golden pin,
So that her panting bosom shows within.
All dazzling white, like the campanulas6
That bloom beside the summer sea, it was,
And, lite twin-billows in a brooklet, full.
Anon, the solitary scene and dull
Loses a little of its sadness, and
A lake shows on the limit of the land,—
A spacious lake, whose wavelets dance and shine,—
While shrubs of golden-herb7 and jessamine8
On the dark shore appear to soar aloft
Until they cast a shadow cool and soft.
It seems to the poor maid a heavenly vision,
A heartening glimpse into the land elysian.
And soon, afar, by that blue wave she sees
A town with circling walls and palaces,
And fountains gay, and churches without end,
And slender spires that to the sun ascend,
And ships and lesser sailing-craft, sun-bright,
Entering the port; and the wind seemeth light,
So that the oriflambs and streamers all
Languidly round the masts arise and fall.
"A miracle!" the maiden thought, and now
Wipes the abundant moisture from her brow,
And, with new hope, toward the town doth fare,
Deeming the Maries' tomb is surely there.
Alas! alas! be her flight ne'er so speedy,
A change will pass upon the scene. Already
The sweet illusion seems to fade and flit;
Recedes the vision as she follows it.
An airy show, the substanoe of a dream,
By spirit woven out of a sunbeam,
And all its fair hues borrowed from the sky,—
The filmy fabric wavers presently,
And melts away, and like a mist is gone.
Bewildered by the heat, and quite alone,
Is left Mirèio: yet her course she keeps,
Toiling over the burning, moving heaps
Of sand; over the salt-encrusted waste—
Seamed, swollen, dazzling to the eye—doth haste.
On through the tall marsh-grasses and the reeds
And rushes, haunted by the gnat, she speeds,
With Vincen ever in her thought. And soon,
Skirting the lonesome Vacarès lagune,
She sees it loom at last in distance dim,—
She sees it grow on the horizon's rim,—
The Saints' white tower, across the billowy plain,
Like vessel homeward bound upon the main.
And, even at that blessèd moment, one
Of the hot shafts of the unpitying sun
The ill-starred mdden's forehead pierced, and she
Staggered, death-smitten, by the glassy sea,
And dropped upon the sand. Weep, sons of Crau,
The sweetest flower in all the land lies low.
When, in a valley by the river-side,
Young turtle-doves a huntsman hath espied,
Some innocently drinking, others cooing,
He, through the copse-wood with his gun pursuing,
At the most fair takes aiway his first aim,—
The cruel sun had only done the same.
Now, as she lay in swoon upon the shore,
A swarm of busy gnats came hovering o'er,
Who seeing the white breast and fluttering breath,
And the poor maiden fainting to her death,
With ne'er a friendly spray of juniper
From all the pulsing fire to shelter her,
Each one the viol of his tiny wings
Imploring played with plaintive murmurings,—
"Get thee up quickly, quickly, damsel fair!
For aye malignant is this burning air,"
And stung the drooping head; and sea-spray flew,
Sprinkling the fevered face with bitter dew:
Until at last Mirèio rose again,
And, with a feeble moan of mortal pain,
"My head! my head!" she dragged her way forlorn
And slow from salicorne to salicorne,—
Poor little one!—until her heavy feet
Arrived before the seaside Saints' retreat.
There, her sad eyes with tears all brimming o'er,
Upon the cold flags of the chapel-floor.
Wet with the infiltration of the sea,
She sank, and clasped her brow in agony;
And on the pinions of the waiting air
Was borne aloft Mirèio's faltering prayer:—
"O holy Maries, who can cheer
The sorrow-laden,
Lend, I beseech, a pitying ear
To one poor maiden!
"And when you see my cruel care
And misery,
Then look in mercy down the air,
And side with me!
"I am so young, dear Saints above,
And there's a youth—
My handsome Vincen—whom I love
With utter truth!
"I love him as the wayward stream
Its wanderings;
As loves the new-fledged bird, I deem,
To try its wings.
"And now they tell me I must quench
This fire eternal;
Must from the blossoming almond wrench
Its flowers vernal.
"O holy Maries, who can cheer
The sorrow-laden,
Lend, I beseech, a pitying ear
To one poor maiden!
"Now am I come, dear Saints, from far,
To sue for peace:
Nor mother-prayer my way could bar,
Nor wilderness;
"The sun, that cruel archer, shot
Into my brain,—
Thorns, as it were, and nails red-hot,—
Sharp is the pain;
"Yet give me but my Vincen dear:
Then will we duly,
We two, with glad hearts worship here,—
Oh, I say truly!
"Then the dire pain will rend no more
These brows of mine,
And the face bathed in tears before
Will smile and shine.
"My sire mislikes our love; is cold
And cruel often:
'Twere naught to you, fair Saints of gold,
His heart to soften.
"Howe'er so hard the olive grow,
'Tis mollified
By all the winds that alway blow
At Advent-tide.
"The medlar and the service-plum,
So sharp to taste
When gathered, strewn on straw become
A pleasant feast.
"O holy Maries, who can cheer
The sorrow-laden,
Lend, I beseech, a pitying ear
To one poor maiden!
······
"Oh, what can mean this dazzling light?
The church is riven
O'erhead; the vault with stars is bright.
Can this be heaven?
"Oh, who so happy now as I?
The Saints, my God,—
The shining Saints,—toward me fly,
Down yon bright road!
"O blessed patrons, are you there
To help, to stay me?
Yet hide the dazzling crowns you wear,
Or these will slay me.
"Veil in a cloud the light appalling!
My eyes are heavy.
Where is the chapel? Are you calling?
O Saints, receive me!"
So, in a trance and past all earthly feeling,
The stricken girl upon the pavement kneeling,
With pleading hands, and head thrown backward, cried.
Her large and lovely eyes were opened wide,
As she beyond the veil of flesh discerned
St. Peter's gates, and for the glory yearned.
Mute were her lips now; but her face yet shone,
And wrapped in glorious contemptation
She seemed. So, when the gold-red rays of dawn
Early alight the poplar-tips upon,
The flickering night-lamp turneth pale and wan
In the dim chamber of a dying man.
And, as at daybreak, also, flocks arouse
From slumber and disperse, the sacred house
Appeared to open, all its vaulted roof
To part, and pillars tall to stand aloof,
Before the three fair women,—heavenly fair,—
Who on a starry path came down the air.
White in the ether pure, and luminous,
Came the three Maries out of heaven thus.
One of them clasped an alabaster vase
Close to her breast, and her celestial face
In splendor had that star alone for peer
That beams on shepherds when the nights are clear.
The next came with a palm in her hand holden,
And the wind lifting her long hair and golden.
The third was young, and wound a mantle white
About her sweet brown visage; and the light
Of her dark eyes, under their failing lashes,
Was greater than a diamond's when it flashes.
So, nearer to the mourner drew these three,
And leaned above, and spake consolingly,
And bright and tender were the smiles that wreathed
Their lips, and soft the message that they breathed.
They made the thorns of cruel martyrdom,
That pierced Mirèio, into flowers bloom.
☩
"Be of good cheer, thou poor Mirèio;
For we are they men call the Saints of Baux,—
The Maries of Judæa: and we three—
Be of good cheer!—we watch the stormy sea,
That we may succor vessels in distress.
Beholding us, the vexèd waves have peace.
"Now lift thine eyes, and see St. James's road!
A moment since, and we together stood
On high at its extremity remote;
And, gazing through the clustered stars, took note
How faithful souls to Campoustello9 fare,
To seek the dear Saint's tomb, and worship there.
"And, with the tone of falling fountains blending,
We heard the solemn litanies ascending
From pilgrims gathered in the fields at even,
And pealing of church-bells, and glory given
Unto our son and nephew, by his names
Of Spain's apostle and the greater James.
"Then were we glad of all the pious vows
Paid to his memory; and, on the brows
Of those poor pilgrims, dews of peace shed we,
And their souls flooded with serenity;
When, suddenly, thy warm petition came,
And seemed to smite us like a jet of flame.
"Dear child, thy faith is great; yet thy request
Our pitying hearts right sorely hath opprest.
For thou wouldst drink the waters of pure love,
Or ever to its source thee Death remove,
The bliss we have in God himself to share.
Hast thou, then, seen contentment anywhere
"On earth? Is the rich blest, who softly lies,
And in his haughty heart his God denies,
And cares not for his fellow-man at all?
Thou knowest the leech when it is gorged will fall,
And he before the judgment-seat must pass
Of One who meekly rode upon an ass.
"Is the young mother happy to impart
Unto her baby, with a swelling heart,
The first warm jet of milk? One bitter drop,
Mingled therewith, may poison all her hope.
Now see her lean, distraught, the cradle over,
And a fair little corse with kisses cover.
"And hath she happiness, the promised bride,
Wandering churchward by her lover's side?
Ah, no! The path under those lingering feet
Thornier shall prove, to those who travel it,
Than sloe-hush of the moorland. Here below
Are only trial sharp and weary woe.
"And here below the purest waters ever
Are bitter on the lips of the receiver;
The worm is born within the fruit alway;
And all things haste to ruin and decay.
The orange thou hast chosen, out of all
The basket's wealth, shall one day taste as gall.
"And in thy world, Mirèio, they who seem
To breathe sigh only. And should any dream
Of drinking at the founts that run not dry,
Anguish alone such bitter draught will buy.
So must the atone be broken evermore,
Ere thou extract the shining silver ore.
"Happy is he who cares for others' woe,
And toils for men, and wearies only so;
From his own shoulders tears their mantle warm,
Therein to fold some pale and shivering form;
Is lowly with the lowly, and can waken
Fire-light on cold hearths of the world-forsaken.
"The sovereign word, that man remembereth not,
Is, 'Death is Life;' and happy is the lot
Of the meek soul and simple,—he who fares
Quietly heavenward, wafted by soft airs;
And lily-white forsakes this low abode,
Where men have stoned the very saints of God.
"And if, Mirèio, thou couldst see before thee,
As we from empyrean heights of glory,
This world; and what a sad and foolish thing
Is all its passion for the perishing,
Its churchyard terrors,—then, O lambkin sweet,
Mayhap thou wouldst for death and pardon bleat!
"But, ere the wheat-ear hath its feathery birth,
Ferments the grain within the darksome earth,—
Such ever is the law; and even we,
Before we wore our crowns of majesty,
Drank bitter draughts. Therefore, thy soul to stay,
We 'll tell the pains and perils of our way."
Paused for a moment, then, the holy three.
The waves, being fain to listen, coaxingly
Had flocked along the ocean sand; the pines
Unto the rustling water-weeds made signs;
And teal and gull beheld, with deep amaze,
Peace on the restless heart of Vacarès;
The sun and moon, afar the desert o'er,
Bow their great crimson foreheads, and adore;
And all Camargue—salt-sown, forsaken isle—
Seems thrilled with sacred expectation; while
The saints, to hearten for her mortal strife
Love's martyr, tell the story of their life.