Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/192

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"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."