Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/173

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"But let me tell you that our hearts are high!
No shame, no stain, is honest poverty!
I 've served my country forty years or more
On shipboard, and I know the cannon's roar,
So young that I could scarce a boat-hook swing
When on my first cruise I went wandering.

"I 've seen Melinda's empire fer away,
And with Suffren have haunted India,
And done my duty over all the world
In the great wars, where'er our flag unfurled
That southern chief who passed his conquering hand
With one red sweep from Spain to Russian land,

"And at whose drum-beat every clime was quaking
Like aspen-tree before the tempest shaking;
Horrors of boarding, shipwreck's agonies,—
These have I known, and darker things than these,
Days than the sea more bitter. Being poor,
No bit of motherland might I secure.

"Scorned bf the rich, I might not dress the sward,
But suffer forty years without reward.
We ate dog's food, on the hoar-frost we lay:
Weary of life, we rushed into the fray,
And so upbore the glorious name of France.
But no one holds it in remembrance!"