Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/263

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"Dear father, if a moth shall sometime fly
About your lamp at night, that will be I.
But see! the Saints are standing on the prow!
They wait. I 'm coming in a moment now!
Slowly I move, good Saints, for I am ailing."
"It is too much!" the mother brake out, wailing.

"Oh, stay with me! I cannot let you die.
And, when you 're well, Mirèio, by and by
We 'll go some day to Aunt Aurano's, dear,
And carry pomegranates. Do you hear?
Maiano is not distant from our home;
And, in one day, one may both go and come."

"Not very distant, mother,—that I know;
But all alone thou wilt the journey go!
Now give me my white raiment, mother mine.
Oh, how the mantles of the Maries shine!
Sawest thou ever such a dazzling sight?
The snow upon the hillsides is less white!"

"O thou," cried the dark weaver, "who didst ope
The palace of thy love to me, my hope,
My queen, my all! A blossoming alms thou gavest;
The mire of my low life in thine thou lavest,
Till it shines like a mirror, and dost place
Me in eternal honor by thy grace.