An ancient crone among the hills of Baux,
Taven by name, “who on the forehead—so—
A glass of water sets: the ray malign
The dazed brain for the crystal will resign.”
“Nay, nay!” impetuously the maiden cried,
“Floods of May sunshine never terrified
The girls of Crau. Why should I hold you waiting?
Vincen, in vain my heart is palpitating!
My secret cannot bide a home so small:
I love you, Vincen, love you!—That is all!”
The river-banks, the close-pruned willows hoary,
Green grass and ambient air, hearing this story,
Were full of glee. But the poor basket-weaver,
“Princess, that thou who art so fair and clever,
Shouldst have a tongue given to wicked lying!
Why, it confounds me! It is stupefying!
“What! thou in love with me? Mirèio,
My poor life is yet happy. Do not go
And make a jest thereof! I might believe
Just for one moment, and thereafter grieve
My soul to death. Ah, no! my pretty maid,
Laugh no more at me in this wise!” he said.
“Now may God shut me out of Paradise,
Vincen, if I have ever told you lies!
Go to! I love you! Will that kill you, friend?
But if you will be cruel, and so send
Me from your side, ’tis I who will fall ill,
And at your feet lie low till sorrow kill!”
“No more! no more!” cried Vincen, desperately:
“There is a gulf ’twixt thee and me! The stately
Queen of the Lotus Farm art thou, and all
Bow at thy coming, hasten to thy call,
While I, a vagrant weaver, only wander,
Plying my trade from Valabrègo yonder.”
“What care I?” cried the fiery girl at once.
Sharp as a sheaf-binder’s came her response.
“May not my lover, then, a baron be,
Or eke a weaver, if he pleases me?
But if you will not have me pine away,
Why look so handsome, even in rags, I say?”
He turned and faced her. Ah, she was enchanting!
And as a charmèd bird falls dizzy, panting,
So he. “Mirèio, thou’rt a sorceress!
And I bedazzled by thy loveliness.
Thy voice, too, mounts into this head of mine,
And makes me like a man o’ercome with wine.
“Why, can it be, Mirèio? Seest thou not
Even now with thy embrace my brain is hot.
I am a pack-bearer, and well may be
A laughing-stock for evermore to thee,
But thou shalt have the truth, dear, in this hour:
I love thee, with a love that could devour!
“Wert thou to ask—lo, love I thee so much!—
The golden goat,24 that ne’er felt mortal touch
Upon its udders, but doth only lick
Moss from the base of the precipitous peak
Of Baux—I’d perish in the quarries there,
Or bring thee down the goat with golden hair!
“So much, that, if thou saidst, ‘I want a star,’
There is no stream so wild, no sea so far,
But I would cross; no headsman, steel or fire,
That could withhold me. Yea, I would climb higher
Than peaks that kiss the sky, that star to wrest;
And Sunday thou shouldst wear it on thy breast!
“O my Mirèio! Ever as I gaze,
Thy beauty fills me with a deep amaze.
Once, when by Vaucluse grotto I was going,
I saw a fig-tree in the bare rock growing;
So very spare it was, the lizards gray
Had found more shade beneath a jasmine spray.
“But, round about the roots, once every year
The neighbouring stream comes gushing, as I hear,
And the shrub drinks the water as it rises,
And that one drink for the whole year suffices.
Even as the gem is cut to fit the ring,
This parable to us is answering.
“I am the fig-tree on the barren mountain;
And thou, mine own, art the reviving fountain!
Surely it would suffice me, could I feel
That, once a year, I might before thee kneel,
And sun myself in thy sweet face, and lay
My lips unto thy fingers, as to-day!”
Trembling with love, Mirèio hears him out,
And lets him wind his arms her neck about
And clasp her as bewildered. Suddenly,
Through the green walk, quavers an old wife’s cry:
“How now, Mirèio? Are you coming soon?
What will the silkworms have to eat at noon?”
As ofttimes, at the coming on of night,
A flock of sparrows on a pine alight
And fill the air with joyous chirruping,
Yet, if a passing gleaner pause and fling
A stone that way, they to the neighbouring wood,
By terror winged, their instant flight make good;
So, with a tumult of emotion thrilled,
Fled the enamoured two across the field.
But when, her leaves upon her head, the maid
Turned silently toward the farm, he stayed—
Vincen—and breathless watched her in her flight
Over the fallow, till she passed from sight.
Canto III
The Cocooning25
When the crop is fair in the olive-yard,
And the earthen jars are ready
For the golden oil from the barrels poured,
And the big cart rocks unsteady
With its tower of gathered sheaves, and strains
And groans on its way through fields and lanes;
When brawny and bare as an old athlete
Comes Bacchus the dance a-leading,
And the labourers all, with juice-dyed feet,
The vintage of Crau are treading,
And the good wine pours from the brimful presses,
And the ruddy foam in the vats increases;
When under the leaves of the Spanish broom
The clear silkworms are holden,
An artist each, in a tiny loom,
Weaving a web all golden—
Fine, frail cells out of sunlight spun,
Where they creep and sleep by the million—
Glad is Provence on a day like that,
’Tis the time of jest and laughter:
The Ferigoulet26 and the Baume Muscat27
They quaff, and they sing thereafter.
And lads and lasses, their toils between,
Dance to the tinkling tambourine.
“Methinks, good neighbours, I am Fortune’s pet.
Ne’er in my trellised arbor saw I yet
A silkier bower, cocoons more worthy praise,
Or richer harvest, since the year of grace
When first I laid my hand on Ramoun’s arm
And came, a youthful bride, to Lotus Farm.”
So spake Jano Mario, Ramoun’s wife,
The fond, proud mother who had given life
To our Mirèio. Unto her had hied,
The while were gathered the cocoons outside,
Her neighbours. In the silk-worm-room they throng;
And, as they aid the picking, gossip long.
To these Mirèio tendered now and then
Oak-sprigs and sprays of rosemary; for when
The worms, lured by the mountain odour, come
In myriads, there to make their silken home,
The sprays and sprigs, adornèd
