Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/201

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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