Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/98

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Tumbling through clouds of dust, the great ewe-dams
Call with loud bleatings to their bleating lambs.
The little hornèd ones are gayly drest,
With tiny tufts of scarlet on the breast
And o'er the neck. While, filling the next place,
The woolly sheep advance at solemn pace.

Amid the tumult now and then the cries
Of shepherd-boy to shepherd-dog arise.
For now the pitch-marked herd innumerable
Press forward: yearlings, two-year-olds as well,
Those who have lost their lambs, and those who carry
Twin lambs unborn with footsteps slow and weary.

A ragamuffin troop brings up the rear.
The barren and past-breeding ewes are here,
The lame, the toothless, and the remnant sorry
Of many a mighty ram, lean now and hoary,
Who from his earthly labors long hath rested,
Of honor and of horns alike divested.

All these who fill the road and mountain-passes—
Old, young, good, bad, and neither; sheep, goats, asses—
Are Alari's, every one. He stands the while
And watches them, a hundred in a file,
Pass on before him; and the man's eyes laugh.
His wand of office is a maple-staff.