Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/147

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The fowlers, torch in hand, who bush and tree
By river-side will beat right vigorously,
Till all the birds at roost arise in haste,
And, as by breath of smithy-bellows chased,
Affrighted, rush until the net receive:
So drave Taven the foul herd with her sieve

Into the outer darkness. With the same
She circles traced, luminous, red as flame,
And divers other figures. All the while,
"Avaunt!" she cried, "ye locusts, ye who spoil
The harvest! Quit my sight, or woe betide you!
Workers of evil, in your burrows hide you!

"Since, by the pricking of your flesh, ye know
The hills are still with sunshine all aglow,
Go hang yourselves again on the rock-angles,
Ye bats!" They flit. The clamor disentangles,
And dies away. Then to the children spake
The witch: "All birds of night themselves betake

"To this retreat what time shines the daylight
On the ploughed land and fallow; but at night,—
At night the lamps are lighted without hand
In churches void and triply fastened, and
The bells toll of themselves, and pavement stones
Upstart, and tremble all the buried hones,