Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/186

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"And shady trees hath planted, ho the rose
To save upon your cheeks. Why, then, expose
Your brow to the unpitying summer heat?"
Vainly as well the butterflies entreat.
For her the wings of love, the wind of faith,
Bear on together, as the tempest's breath

White gulls astray over the briny plains
Of Agui-Morto. Utter sadness reigns
In scattered sheep-cots of their tenants left,
And overrun with salicorne. Bereft
In the hot desert, seemed the maid to wake,
And see nor spring nor pool her thirst to slake,

And slightly shuddered. "Great St. Gent!"⁵ she cried,
"O hermit of the Bausset mountain-side!
O fair yonng laborer, who to thy plough
Didst harness the fierce mountain-wolf ere now,
And in the flinty rock, recluse divine,
Didst open springs of water and of wine,

"And so revive thy mother, perishing
Of heat! like me, when they were slumbering,
Thou didst forsake thy household, and didst fare
Alone with God through mountain-passes, where
Thy mother found thee! For me, too, dear Saint,
Open a spring; for I am very faint,