Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/150

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But straight thereafter, "Cover ears and eyes,
For the black lamb is bleating!" wildly cries.
"That basing lambkin!" Vincen dared to say;
But she, "Hide eyes and ears without delay!
Woe to the stumbler here! Sambuco's¹¹ Path
Less peril than the black horn's passage hath.

"Tender his bleating, as you hear, and soft:
Thereby he lures to their destruction oft
The heedless Christians who attend his moan.
To them he shows the sheen of Herod's throne,
The gold of Judas, and the fatal spot
Where Saracens made fast the golden goat.

"Her they may milk till death, to hearts' content.
But, when they call for holy sacrament,
The black lamb only buts them savagely.
And yet, so evil is the time," quoth she,
"Unnumbered greedy souls that bait will seize,
Burn incense unto gold, then die as these!"

Now, while the white hen gave three piercing crows,
The eerie guide did to her guests disclose
The thirteenth grotto, and the last; and lo!
A huge, wide chimney and a hearth aglow,
And seven black tom-cats warming round the flame;
And, hanging from a hook above the same,