Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/191

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"Alway the orders issued huskily,
As in the fiery whirlwind still stood he.
The greedy master of the treaders white
Had even muzzled them, in his despite.
And, when Our Lady's⁹ day in August came,
The coupled beasts were treading, all the same,

"The pillèd sheaves, foam-drenched. Their livers clung
Fast to their ribs, and their jaws drivelling hung,
When suddenly an icy, northern gale
Smit, swept the floor,—and God's blasphemers feel
It quake and part! On a black caldron's brink
They stand now, and their eyes with horror sink.

"Then the sheaves whirl with fiiry terrible,
Pitch-forkers, keepers, keepers-aids as well,
Struggle to save them; but they naught can do:
The van, the van-goats, and the mill-stones too,
Horses and drivers, treading-floor, and master
Are swallowed up in one immense disaster!"

"You make me shudder!" poor Mirèio said.
"Ah, but that is not all, my pretty maid!
Thou thlnkest me a little mad, may be:
But on the morrow thou the spot wilt see;
And carp and tench in the blue water playin,
And, in the reeds, marsh-blackbirds roundlaying.