Mirèio/Canto IX
CANTO IX.
THE MUSTER.
ALL sorrowfully droop the lotus-trees;
And heart-sick to their hives withdraw the bees,
Forgetful of the heath with savory sweet,
And with milk-thistle. Water-lilies greet
King-fishers blue that to the vivary hie,
And "Have you seen Mirèio?" is their cry.
While Ramoun and his wife by the fireside
Are sitting, lost in grief and swollen-eyed,
And at their hearts the bitterness of death.
"Doubtless," they said, "her reason wandereth.
Oh, what a mad and wretched maid it is!
Oh, what a heavy, cruel downfall this!
"Oh, dire disgrace! Our beauty and our hope
So with the last of trampers to elope!
Fled with a gypsy! And who shall discover
The secret hole of this kidnapping lover,
Where be the shameless one concealed hath?"
And, as they spake, they knit their brows in wrath.
Now came the cup-bearer with ass aad pannier,
And on the threshold, in his wonted manner,
Pausing, "Good-morrow, master fair!" he cried.
"I 'm come to fetch the lunch."1—"Curse it!" replied
The poor old man. "Begone! Without my child,
I 'm like a cork-tree of its bark despoiled.
"Yet hark ye, cup-bearer, upon your track
Across the fields like lightning go you back,
And bid the ploughmen and the mowers all
Quit ploughs and scythes, the harvesters let fall
Their sickles, and the shepherds too," said he,
"Forsake their flocks, and instant come to me!"
Then, fleeter than a goat, the faithful man
O'er stony fallow and red clover ran,
Threaded holm-oaks2 on long declivities,
Leaped o'er the roads along the base of these,
And now already scents the sweet perfume
Of new-mown hay, and the blue-tufted bloom
Of tall lucerne descries; and presently
The measured sweep of the long scythes hears he,
And lusty mowers bending in a row
Beholds, and grass by the keen steel laid low
In verdant swaths,—ever a pleasant sight,—
And children, and young maidens, with delight
Raking the hay and in cocks piling it;
While crickets, that before the mowers flit,
Hark to their singing. Also, farther on,
An ash-wood cart, by two white oxen drawn,
Heaped with cured grass, where a skilled waggoner
Doth, by huge armfuls, high and higher rear
The forage roand his waist, till it conceals
The rails, the cart-beam, and the very wheels;
And, when the cart moves on, with the hay trailing,
It seems like some unwieldy vessel sailing.
But now the loader rises, and descries
The runner, and "Hold, men! there 's trouble!" cries;
And cartman's aids, who in great forkfuls carry
To him the hay, now for a moment tarry,
And wipe their streaming brows; and mowers rest
The scythe-back carefully upon the breast,
And whet the edge, as they the plain explore
That Phœbos wings his burning arrows o'er.
Began the rustic messenger straightway,
"Hear, men, what our good master bade me say:
"'Cup-bearer,' was his word, 'upon your track
Across the fields like lightning go you back,
And bid the ploughmen and the mowers all
Quit ploughs and scythes, the harvesters let fall
"'Their sickles, and the shepherds hastily
Forsake their flocks, and hither come to me!'"
Then, fleeter than a goat, the faithful man
O'er the rich, madder-growing3 hillocks ran,—
Althen's bequest,—and saw on every hand
The gold of perfect ripeness tinge the land,
And centaury-starred fields, and ploughmen bent
Above their ploughs and on their mules intent,
And earth, awakened from her winter-sleep,
And shapeless clods upturned from furrows deep,
And wagtails frisking o'er; and yet again,
"Hearken to what our master saith, good men!
"'Cupbearer,' was his word, 'upon your track
Across the flelds like lightning go you back,
And bid the ploughmen and the mowers all
Quit ploughs and scythes, the harvesters let fall
Their sickles, and the shepherds hastily
Forsake their flocks, and hither come to me!'"
Then the stout runner, fleeter than the goats,
Dashed through the pieces waving with wild-oats,
Fosses o'erleaped with meadow-flowers bright,
And in great yellow wheat-fields passed from sight,
Where reapers forty, sickle each in hand,
Like a devouring fire fall on the land,
And strip her mantle rich and odorous
From off her breast, and, ever gaining thus
As wolves gain on their prey, rob, hour by hour,
Earth of her gold, and summer of her flower;
While in the wake of each, in ordered line,
Falls the loose grain, like tendrils of the vine.
And the sheaf-binders, ever on the watch,
The dropping wheat in handfuls deftly catch,
And underneath the arm the same bestow
Until, so gathering, they have enow;
When, pressing with the knee, they tightly bind,
And lastly fling the perfect sheaf behind.
Twinkle the sickles keen like swarming bees,
Or laughing ripple upon sunny seas
Where flounders are at play. Erect and tall,
With rough beards blent, in heaps pyramidal,
The sheaves by hundreds rise. The plain afar
Shows like a tented camp in days of war;
Even like that which once arose upon
Our own Beaucaire, in days how long withdrawn!
When came a host of terrible invaders,
The great Simon and all the French crusaders,
Led by a legate, and in fierce advance
Count Raymond slaughtered and laid waste Provence.
And here, with gleanings falling from her fingers,
Full many a merry gleaner strays and lingers;
Or in the warm lea of the stacks of corn,
Or 'mid the canes,4 drops langaidly, o'erborne
By some long look, that e'en bewilders her,
Because Love also is a harvester.
And yet again 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 harvesters let fall
Their sickles, and the shepherds instantly
Forsake their flocks, and hither come to me!"
Then fleeter than a goat sped on his way
The faithful soul, straight through the olives gray,
On, on, like a north-eastern gale descending
Upon the vineyards, and the branches rending,
Until, away in Crau, the waste, the lonely,
Behold him, where the partridge whirreth only;
And, still remote, discovers he the flocks
Tranquilly lying under the dwarf-oaks,
And the chief-shepherd, with his helpers young,
For noon-tide rest about the heather flung,
And little wag-tails hopping at their ease
O'er sheep that ruminate unmoved by these
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,
The master and his wife sat down to bide
The coming of the hands; who, as they hied
Thither, much marvelled at the strange behest
So calling them from toil, and who addrest
These words unto old Ramoun, drawing near:
"Thou sentest for us, master. We are here."
Then Ramoun raised his head, and thus replied:
"The great storm alway comes at harvest-tide.
However well-advised, as we advance
We must, poor souls, all stumble on mischance:
I cannot say it plainer. Friends, I pray,
Let each tell what he knows, without delay!"
Lauren de Gout came forward first. Now he
Had failed no single year since infancy
His quivered sickle from the hills to bring
Down into Arles when ears were yellowing.
Brown as a church-stone, he, with weather-stain,
Or ancient rock the sea-waves charge in vain.
The sun might scorch, the north-west wind might roar,
But this old king of reapers evermore
Was first at work. And now with him there came
Seven rough and stalwart boys who bore his name.
Him with one voice the harvesters did make
Their chief, and justly: therefore thus he spake:
"If it be true that, when the dawning sky
Is ruddy, there is rain or snow close by,
Then what I saw this very morn, my master,
Presageth surely sorrow and disaster.
So may God stay the earthquake! But as night
Fled westward, followed by the early light,
"And wet with dew as ever, I the men
First summoned briskly to their toil again,
And then myself my sleeves uprolling gayly,
Bent me to mine own task, as I do daily;
But at the first stroke wounded thus my hand,—
A thing which hath not happened, understand,
"For thirty years." His fingers then he showed,
And the deep gash, wherefrom the blood yet flowed.
Then groaned, more piteously than before,
Mirèio's parents; while a lusty mower,
One Jan Bouquet, a knight of La Tarasque5
From Tarascon, a hearing rose to ask.
A rough lad he, yet kind and comely too.
None with such grace in Condamino threw
The pike and flag,6 and never merrier fellow
Sang Lagadigadèu's ritournello7
About the gloomy streets of Tarascon,
When, once a year, they ring with shout and song,
And brighten up with dances and are blithe.
He might have been a master of the scythe,
Could he have held the straight, laborious path;
But, when the fête-days came, farewell the swath,
And welcome revels underneath the trees,
And orgies in the vaulted hostelries,
And bull-baitings, and never-ending dances!
A very roisterer he who now advances,
With, "As we, master, in long sweeps were mowing,
I hailed a nest of francolines, just showing
Under a tuft of tares; and, as I bent
Over the pendent grass, with the intent
"To count the fluttering things, what do I see
But horrible red ants—oh, misery!—
In full possession of the nest and young!
Three were then dead. The rest, with vermin stung,
Their little heads out of the nest extended,
As though, poor things, they cried to be defended;
"But a great cloud of ants, more venomous
Than nettles, greedy, eager, furious,
Them were o'erwhelming even then; and I,
Leaning upon my scythe right pensively,
Could hear, far off, the mother agonize
Over their cruel fate, with piteous cries."
This tale of woe, following upon the other,
Is a lance-thrust to father and to mother:
Their worst foreboding it hath justified.
Then, as a tempest in the hot June-tide,
Gathering silently, ascends the air,
The weather darkening ever, till the glare
Of lightning shows in the north-east, and loud
Peal follows peal, another left the crowd,
One Lou Marran. It was a name renowned
In all the farms when winter-eves came round,
And laborers, chatting while the mules were stalled
And pulling lucerne from the rack, recalled
What things befell when first this man was hired,
Until the lights for lack of oil expired.
Seed-time it was, and every other man
Was opening up his furrow save Marran;
Who, hangig back, eyed coulter, tackle, share,
As he the like had seen not anywhere.
Till the chief-ploughman spake: "Here is a lout
To plough for hire! Why, a hog with his snout
I wager would work better!"—"I will take
Thy bet," said Lou Marran; "and be the stake
Three golden louis! Either thou or I,
Master, that sum will forfeit presently."
"Let blow the trumpet!" Then the ploughmen twain
In two unswerving lines upturn the plain,
Making for the chosen goal,—two poplars high.
The sun-rays gild the ridges equally,
And all the laborers call out, "Well done!
Thy furrow, chieftain, is a noble one;
"Yet, sooth to say, so straight the other is,
One might an arrow shoot the length of this."
And Lou Marran was winner,—he who here
Before the baffled council doth appear,
All pale, to bear his bitter evidence:
"Comrades, as I was whistling, not long since,
"Over my share, methought the land was rough,
And we would stretch, the day to finish off;
When, lo! my beasts with fear began to quake,
Bristled their hairy sides, their ears lay back.
They stopped; and, with dazed eyes, I saw all round
The field-herbs fade, and wither to the ground.
"I touch my pair. Baiardo sadly eyes
His master, but stirs not. Falet applies
His nostril to the furrow. Then I lash
Their shins; and, all in terror, off they dash,
So that the ash-wood beam—the beam, I say—
Is rent, and yoke and tackle borne away.
"Then I grew pale, and all my breath was gone;
And, seized as with a strong convulsion,
I ground my jaws. A dreadful shudder grew
Upon me,—and my hair upraised, I knew,
As thistle-down is raised by the wind's breath;
But the wind sweeping over me was Death."
"Mother of God!" Mirèio's mother cried
In anguish, "do thou in thy mantle hide
Mine own sweet child!" and on her knees she dropped,
With lifted eyes and parted lips; yet stopped
Ere any word was spoken, for she saw
Antéume, shepherd-chief and milker, draw
Hurriedly toward them. "And why," he was panting,
"Was she the junipers untimely haunting?"
Then, the ring entering, his tale he told.
"This morn, as we were milking in the fold,—
So early that above the bare plain showed
The sky yet hob-nailed with the stars of God,—
"A soul, a shadow, or a spectre swept
Across the way. The dogs all silence kept,
As if afraid, and the sheep huddled close.
Thought I,—who scarce have time, as master knows,
Ever an Ave in the church to offer,—
'Speak, soul, if thou art blest. If not, go suffer!'
"Then came a voice I knew,—it never varies,—
'Will none go with me to the holy Maries,
Of all the shepherds?' Ere the word was said,
Afar over the plain the voice had fled.
Wilt thou believe it, master?—it was she,
Mirèio!" Cried the people, "Can it be?"
"It was herself!" the shepherd-chief replied:
"I saw her in the star-light past me glide,
Not, surely, as she was in other days,
But lifting up a wan, affrighted face;
Whereby she was a living soul, I knew,
And stung by some exquisite anguish too."
At this dread word, the laborers groan, and wring
Each other's horny palms, "But who will bring,"
The stricken mother began wildly shrieking,
"Me to the saints? My bird I must be seeking!
My partridge of the stony field," she said,
"I must o'ertake, wherever she has fled.
"And if the ants attack her, then these teeth
Shall grind them and their hill! If greedy Death
Dare touch my darling rudely, then will I
Break his old, rusty scythe, and she shall fly
Away across the jungle!" Crying thus,
Jano Mario fled delirious
Back to the home; while Ramoun order gave,
"Cartman, set up the cart-tilt, wet the nave,
And oil the axle, and without delay
Harness Moureto.8 We go far to-day,
And it is late." The mother, in despair,
Mounted the cart; and more and more the air
Resounded with the transports of her woe:
"O pretty dear! O wilderness of Crau!
O endless, briny plains! O dreadful sun,
Be kind, I pray you, to the fainting one!
But for her,—the accursèd witch Taven,—
Who lured my darling into her foul den,
And poured before her, as I know right well,
Her philters and her potions horrible,
And made her drink,—now may the demons all
Who bind St. Anthony upon her fall,
And drag her body o'er the rocks of Baux!"
As the unhappy soul lamented so,
Her tones were smothered by the cart's rude shaking;
And the farm-laborers, a last look taking
To see if none were coming o'er the plain,
Turned slowly, sadly, to their toil again;
While swarms of gnats, the idle, happy things,
Filled the green walks with sound of humming wings.