Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/216

190 Yet grows the torment ever more and more; The sun ascending higher than hefore, Until it rides in the unshaded zenith, And thence a very flood of fire raineth,— As a starved lion with his eye devours The Abyssinian desert in his course.

Now were it sweet beneath a beech to slumber! Now, like a swarm of hornets without number,— An angry swarm, fierce darting high and low,— Or like the hot sparks from a grindstone, grow The pitiless rays; and Love's poor pilgrim, worn And gasping, and by weariness o'erborne,

Forth from her bodice draws its golden pin, So that her panting bosom shows within. All dazzling white, like the campanulas$6$ That bloom beside the summer sea, it was, And, lite twin-billows in a brooklet, full. Anon, the solitary scene and dull

Loses a little of its sadness, and A lake shows on the limit of the land,— A spacious lake, whose wavelets dance and shine,— While shrubs of golden-herb$7$ and jessamine$8$ On the dark shore appear to soar aloft Until they cast a shadow cool and soft.