Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/59

] Sing, magnarello, merrily, As the green leaves you gather! The sun of May is riding high, And ardent is the weather.

Now suddenly Mirèio whispered, "Hark! What can that be?" and listened like a lark Upon a vine, her small forefinger pressing Against her lip, and eager eyes addressing To a bird's nest upon a leafy bough, Just opposite the one where she was now.

"Ah! wait a little while!" with bated breath, So the young basket-weaver answereth, And like a sparrow hopped from limb to limb Toward the nest. Down in the tree-trunk dim, Close peering through a crevice in the wood, Full-fledged and lively saw he the young brood.

And, sitting firmly the rough bough astride, Clung with one hand, and let the other glide Into the hollow trunk. Above his head Mirèio leaned with her cheeks rosy red. "What sort?" she whispered from her covert shady. "Beauties!"—"But what?"—"Blue tomtits, my young lady!"