Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/216

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Yet grows the torment ever more and more;
The sun ascending higher than hefore,
Until it rides in the unshaded zenith,
And thence a very flood of fire raineth,—
As a starved lion with his eye devours
The Abyssinian desert in his course.

Now were it sweet beneath a beech to slumber!
Now, like a swarm of hornets without number,—
An angry swarm, fierce darting high and low,—
Or like the hot sparks from a grindstone, grow
The pitiless rays; and Love's poor pilgrim, worn
And gasping, and by weariness o'erborne,

Forth from her bodice draws its golden pin,
So that her panting bosom shows within.
All dazzling white, like the campanulas⁶
That bloom beside the summer sea, it was,
And, lite twin-billows in a brooklet, full.
Anon, the solitary scene and dull

Loses a little of its sadness, and
A lake shows on the limit of the land,—
A spacious lake, whose wavelets dance and shine,—
While shrubs of golden-herb⁷ and jessamine⁸
On the dark shore appear to soar aloft
Until they cast a shadow cool and soft.