Their hearts beat high, the green leaves fell like rain;
And, when the time for sacking came again,
Whether by chance or by contrivance, yet
The white hand and the brown hand always met.
Nor seemed there any lack of happiness
The while their labour failed not to progress.
Sing, magnarello, merrily,
As the green leaves you gather!
The sun of May is riding high,
And ardent is the weather.
Now suddenly Mirèio whispered, “Hark!
What can that be?” and listened like a lark
Upon a vine, her small forefinger pressing
Against her lip, and eager eyes addressing
To a bird’s nest upon a leafy bough,
Just opposite the one where she was now.
“Ah! wait a little while!” with bated breath,
So the young basket-weaver answereth,
And like a sparrow hopped from limb to limb
Toward the nest. Down in the tree-trunk dim,
Close peering through a crevice in the wood,
Full-fledged and lively saw he the young brood.
And, sitting firmly the rough bough astride,
Clung with one hand, and let the other glide
Into the hollow trunk. Above his head
Mirèio leaned with her cheeks rosy red.
“What sort?” she whispered from her covert shady.
“Beauties!”—“But what?”—“Blue tomtits, my young lady!”
Then laughed the maiden, and her laugh was gay:
“See, Vincen! Have you never heard them say
That when two find a nest in company,
On mulberry, or any other tree,
The Church within a year will join those two?
And proverbs, father says, are always true.”
“Yea,” quoth the lad; “but do not thou forget
That this, our happy hope, may perish yet,
If all the birdies be not caged forthwith.”
“Jesu divine!” the maiden murmureth:
“Put them by quickly! It concerns us much
Our birdies should be safe from alien touch.”
“Why, then, the very safest place,” said he,
“Methinks, Mirèio, would thy bodice be!”
“Oh, surely!” So the lad explores the hollow,
His hand withdrawing full of tomtits callow.
Four were they; and the maid in ecstacy
Cries “Mon Dieu!” and lifts her hands on high.
“How many! What a pretty brood it is!
There! There, poor darlings, give me just one kiss!”
And, lavishing a thousand fond caresses,
Tenderly, carefully, the four she presses
Inside her waist, obeying Vincen’s will;
While he, “Hold out thy hands! there are more still!”
“Oh sweet! The little eyes in each blue head
Are sharp as needles,” as Mirèio said
Softly, three more of the wee brood she pressed
Into their smooth, white prison with the rest,
Who, when bestowed within that refuge warm,
Thought they were in their nest and safe from harm.
“Are there more, Vincen?”—“Ay!” he answered her.
“Then, Holy Virgin! you’re a sorcerer!”
“Thou simple maid! About St. George’s day,
Ten, twelve, and fourteen eggs, these tomtits lay.
Ay, often. Now let these the others follow!
They are the last: so good-bye, pretty hollow!”
But ere the words were spoken, and the maid
In her flowered neckerchief had fairly laid
Her little charge, she gave a piercing wail:
“Oh me! oh me!” then murmured, and turned pale;
And, laying both her hands upon her breast,
Moaned, “I am dying!” and was sore distressed,
And could but weep: “Ah, they are scratching me!
They sting! Come quickly, Vincent, up the tree!”
For on the last arrival had ensued
Wondrous commotion in the hidden brood;
The fledglings latest taken from the nest
Had sore disorder wrought among the rest.
Because within so very small a valley
All could not lie at ease, so must they gayly
Scramble with claw and wing down either slope,
And up the gentle hills, thus to find scope:
A thousand tiny somersets they turn,
A thousand pretty rolls they seem to learn.
And “Ah, come quick!” is still the maiden’s cry,
Trembling like vine-spray when the wind is high,
Or like a heifer stung with cattle-flies.
And, as she bends and writhes in piteous wise,
Leaps Vincen upward till he plants his feet
Once more beside her on her airy seat.
Sing, magnarello, heap your leaves,
While sunny is the weather!
He comes to aid her when she grieves:
The two are now together.
“Thou likest not this tickling?” kindly said he.
“What if thou wert like me, my gentle lady,
And hadst to wander barefoot through the nettles?”
So proffering his red sea-cap, there he settles
Fast as she draws them from her neckerchief
The birdies, to Mirèio’s vast relief.
Yet ah, poor dear, the downcast eyes of her!
She dares not look at her deliverer
For a brief space. But soon a smile ensues,
And the tears vanish, as the morning dews
That drench the flowers and grass at break of day
Roll into little pearls and pass away.
And then there came a fresh catastrophe:
The branch whereon they sat ensconced in glee
Snapped, broke asunder, and with ringing shriek
Mirèio flung her arms round Vincen’s neck,
And he clasped hers, and they whirled suddenly
Down through the leaves upon the supple rye.
Listen, wind of the Greek,23 wind of the sea,
And shake no more the verdant canopy!
Hush for one moment, O thou childish breeze!
Breathe soft and whisper low, beholding these!
Give them a little time to dream of bliss—
To dream at least, in such a world as this!
Thou too, swift streamlet of the prattling voice,
Peace, prithee! In this hour, make little noise
Among the vocal pebbles of thy bed!
Ay, little noise! Because two souls have sped
To one bright region. Leave them there, to roam
Over the starry heights—their proper home!
A moment, and she struggled to be free
From his embrace. The flower of the quince-tree
Is not so pale. Then backward the two sank,
And gazed at one another on the bank,
Until the weaver’s son the silence brake,
And thus in seeming wrath arose and spake:
“Shame on thee, thou perfidious mulberry!
A devil’s tree! A Friday-planted tree!
Blight seize and wood-louse eat thee! May thy master
Hold thee in horror for this day’s disaster!
Tell me thou art not hurt, Mirèio!”
Trembling from head to foot, she answered, “No:
“I am not hurt; but as a baby weeps
And knows not why—there’s something here that keeps
Perpetual tumult in my heart. A pain
Blinds me and deafens me, and fills my brain,
So that my blood in a tumultuous riot
Courses my body through, and won’t be quiet.”
“May it not be,” the simple boy replied,
“Thou fearest to have thy mother come and chide
Thy tardy picking—as when I come back
Late from the blackberry-field with face all black,
And tattered clothes?” Mirèio sighed again,
“Ah, no! This is another kind of pain!”
“Or possibly a sun-stroke may have lighted
Upon thee!”
