Page:A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields.djvu/263

A PAGE FROM THE BIBLE.

ARSÈNE HOUSSAYE.

I

The rural sounds of eve were softly blending—
The fountain's murmur like a magic rhyme,
The bellow of the cattle homeward wending,
The distant steeple's melancholy chime;

The peasants' shouts that charms from distance borrow,
The greenfinch whirring in its amorous flight,
The cricket's chirp, the night-bird's song of sorrow,
The laugh of girls who beat the linen white.

The breeze scarce stirred the reeds beside the river,
The swallows saw their figures as they flew
In that clear mirror for a moment quiver,
Before they vanished in the clouds from view.

And schoolboys wilder than the winging swallows
Far from the master with his look severe,
Bounded like fawns, to gather weeds, marsh-mallows
And primrose blossoms to the young heart dear.