Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/179

] "Who tread me underfoot! Could you but see My heart's mad tumult, you would pity me! You used to call me darling long ago, And now you bend me to the yoke as though I were a vicious colt that you were fain To break. Why does the sea not flood this plain?

"I would the wealthy lands that make me weep Were hid for evermore in the great deep! Ah, had I in a serpent's hole been born, Of some poor vagrant, I were less forlorn! For then if any lad, my Vincen even, Had asked my band, mayhap it had been given.

"O Vincen, who so handsome are and true! If only they would let me go to you, I 'd cling as clings the tender ivy-vine Unto the oak: I would not ever pine For food, but life in your caresses find, And drink at wayside pools with happy mind."

So on her pallet the sweet maid lay sobbing, Fire in her heart and every vein a-throbbing, And all the happy time remembering— Oh, calm and happy!—of her love's fair spring, Until a word in Vincen's very tone Comes to her memory. "'Twas you, my own,—