Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/247

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"Enough, O Magdalene! Thirty years ago,
The wind that in the foreat whispers low
Bare thee the pardon of the Man divine!
The tears that the rock weeps are tears of thine.
These, like a snowfall softly sprinkled o'er,
Shall whiten woman's love for ever more!

"But naught can stay the mourner's gnawing grief.
Even the little birds bring not relief,
That flock around her, building many a nest
On Saint Pilon; nor spirits of the blest,
Who lift and rock her in their arms of love,
And soar, seven times a day, the vales above.

"O Lord, be thine the glory! And may we
In thy full brightness and reality
Behold thee ever! Poor and fugitive,
We women did of thy great grace receive.
We, even we, touched by thy love supernal,
Shed some feint reflex of the light eternal.

"Ye, Alpine peaks and all blue hills of Baux,
Unto the latest hour of time will show
The traces of our teaching carved in stone!⁵
And so Death found us on the marshes lone,
Deep in Camargue, encircled by the sea,
And from our day's long labor set us free.