Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/209

] "Then came a voice I knew,—it never varies,— 'Will none go with me to the holy Maries, Of all the shepherds?' Ere the word was said, Afar over the plain the voice had fled. Wilt thou believe it, master?—it was she, Mirèio!" Cried the people, "Can it be?"

"It was herself!" the shepherd-chief replied: "I saw her in the star-light past me glide, Not, surely, as she was in other days, But lifting up a wan, affrighted face; Whereby she was a living soul, I knew, And stung by some exquisite anguish too."

At this dread word, the laborers groan, and wring Each other's horny palms, "But who will bring," The stricken mother began wildly shrieking, "Me to the saints? My bird I must be seeking! My partridge of the stony field," she said, "I must o'ertake, wherever she has fled.

"And if the ants attack her, then these teeth Shall grind them and their hill! If greedy Death Dare touch my darling rudely, then will I Break his old, rusty scythe, and she shall fly Away across the jungle!" Crying thus, Jano Mario fled delirious