Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/255

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And all the while Mirèio lay in swoon,
Till a breeze, with declining afternoon,
Blew from the tamarisks. Then, in the hope
To call her back to life, they lifted up
The flower of Lotus Farm, and tenderly
Laid on the tiles that overlook the sea.

There, from the doorway leading on the roof,—
The chapel's eye,—one may look far, far off,
Even to the pallid limit of the brine,
The blending and the separating line
'Twixt vaulted sky and weary sea explore,
And the great waves that roll for evermore.

Insensate and unceasing and untiring,
They follow one another on; expiring,
With sullen roar, amid the drifted sand:
While vast savannas, on the other hand,
Stretch till they meet a heaven without a stain,
Unfathomed blue over unmeasured plain.

Only a light-green tamarisk, here and there,
Quivering in the faintest breath of air,
Or a long belt of salicornes, appears,
With swans that dip them in the desert meres,
With oxen roaming the waste moor at large,
Or swimming Vacares from marge to marge.