Page:Mistral - Mirèio. A Provençal poem.djvu/67

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"Why, can't it be, Mirèio? Seest thou not
Even now with thy embrace my brain is hot.
I am a pack-bearer, and well may be
A laughing-stock for evermore to thee,
But thou shalt have the truth, dear, in this hour:
I love thee, with a love that could devour!

"Wert thou to ask,—lo, love I thee so much!—
The golden goat,⁸ that ne'er felt mortal touch
Upon its udders, but doth only lick
Moss from the base of the precipitous peak
Of Baux,—I 'd perish in the quarries there,
Or bring thee down the goat with golden hair!

"So much, that, if thou saidst, 'I want a star,'
There is no stream so wild, no sea so far,
But I would cross; no headsman, steel or fire,
That could withhold me. Yea, I would climb higher
Than peaks that kiss the sky, that star to seek;
And Sunday thou shouldst wear it on thy neck!

"O my Mirèio! Ever as I gaze,
Thy beauty fills me with a deep amaze.
Once, when by Vaucluse grotto I was going,
I saw a fig-tree in the bare rock growing;
So very spare it was, the lizards gray
Had found more shade beneath a jasmine spray.