Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/231

] "Oh! then in Jewry woe and weeping were For the fair Galilean carpenter,— Him who his honeyed parables distilled Over their hearts, and fanting thousands filled Upon the hillsides with unleavened bread, And healed the leper and revived the dead.

"But scribes and kings and priests, and all the horde Of sacrilegious vendors whom the Lord Had driven from his house, their hatred uttered, 'And who the people will restrain,' they muttered, 'Unless in all the region round about The glory of this cross be soon put out?'

"So raged they, and the martyrs testified: Stephen the first was stoned until he died, James with the sword was slain, and many a one Cruelly crushed beneath a weight of stone. Yet, dying, all bear record undismayed: 'Christ Jesus is the Son of God!' they said.

"Then us, brothers and sisters of the slain, Who him had followed in a loving train, They thrust into a crazy bark; and we, Oarless and sailless, drifted out to sea. We women sorely wept, the men their eyes Anxiously lifted to the lowering skies.