Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/251

 CANTO XII.

DEATH.

S, when in orange-lands God's day is ending, The maids let fly the leafy boughs, and, lending A helpful hand, the laden baskets lift On head or hip, and fishing-boats adrift Are drawn ashore, and, following the sun, The golden clouds evanish, one by one;

As the full harmonies of eventide, Swelling from hill and plain and river-side Along the sinuous Argens,—airy notes Of pastoral pipe, love-songs, and bleat of goats,— Grow fainter, and then wholly fade away, And sombre night falls on the mountains gray;

Or as the last sigh of an anthem soft, Or dying organ-peal, is borne aloft O'er some old church, and on the wandering wind Passes afar,—so passed the music twined Of the three Maries' voices, heavenward carried. For her, she seemed asleep; for yet she tarried