Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/230

 CANTO XI.

THE SAINTS.

HE cross was looming yet, Mirèio, Aloft on the Judæan mount of woe, Wet with the blood of God; and all the time Seemed crying to the city of the crime, 'What hast thou done, thou lost and slumbering,— What hast thou done, I say, with Bethlehem's King?'

"The angry clamors of the streets were stayed; Cedron alone a low lamenting made Afar; and Jordan rolled a gloomy tide, Hasting into the desert, there to hide The overflowings of his grief and rage 'Mid terebinth and lentisk foliage.

"And all the poorer folk were heavy-hearted, Knowing it was the Christ who had departed, First having opened his own prison-door, On friends and followers to look once more, The sacred keys unto St. Peter given, And, like an eagle, soared away to heaven.