Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/223

] So, in a trance and past all earthly feeling, The stricken girl upon the pavement kneeling, With pleading hands, and head thrown backward, cried. Her large and lovely eyes were opened wide, As she beyond the veil of flesh discerned St. Peter's gates, and for the glory yearned.

Mute were her lips now; but her face yet shone, And wrapped in glorious contemptation She seemed. So, when the gold-red rays of dawn Early alight the poplar-tips upon, The flickering night-lamp turneth pale and wan In the dim chamber of a dying man.

And, as at daybreak, also, flocks arouse From slumber and disperse, the sacred house Appeared to open, all its vaulted roof To part, and pillars tall to stand aloof, Before the three fair women,—heavenly fair,— Who on a starry path came down the air.

White in the ether pure, and luminous, Came the three Maries out of heaven thus. One of them clasped an alabaster vase Close to her breast, and her celestial face In splendor had that star alone for peer That beams on shepherds when the nights are clear.