Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/188

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"Here in my basket have I—see, how many!
Nuns,⁶ harvest-snails,⁷ and these,⁸ as good as any!"
"Well, and you 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.
Sea-cattle has she on the isles, who graze
Of the salt-meres. Wild horses, too, she has;

"And, in one summer, corn enongh she raises
To feed her seven full years, if so she pleases.
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: