Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/202

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And slowly, slowly sailing o'er the sea
Diaphanous vapors, light and white, sees he,
And deems that up in heaven some fair saint,
Gliding too near the sun, is stricken faint
On the aerial heights, and hath let fall
Her convent-veil. And still the herald's call;—

"Hark, shepherds, to the master's word,—'Go back
Like lightning, cupbearer, upon your track,
And bid the ploughmen and the mowers all
Quit ploughs and scythes, the reapers too let fall
Their sickles, and the shepherds instantly
Forsake their flocks, and hither come to me!'"

Then the scythes rested and the ploughs were stayed,
The forty highland reapers each his blade
Let tall, and rushed as bees on new-found wings
Forsake the hive, begin their wanderings,
And, by the din of clanging cymbals led,
Gather them to a pine. So also fled

The laborers one and all; the waggoners,
And they who tended them; the rick-builders,
Gleaners, and shepherds, and of sheaves the heapers,
Binders of sheaves, rakers, mowers, and reapers,
Mustered them at the homestead. There, heart-sore
And silent, on the grass-grown treading-floor,