Well-nigh inaudible, with head bent low,
“I know not, Vincen,”—thus Mirèio.
And so they turned a few more leaves to gather,
And for a while spake not again, but rather
Exchanged bright looks and sidelong, saying well
The one who first should laugh, would break the spell.
Their hearts beat high, the green leaves fell like rain;
And, when the time for sacking came again,
Whether by chance or by contrivance, yet
The white hand and the brown hand always met.
Nor seemed there any lack of happiness
The while their labour failed not to progress.
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!”
Then laughed the maiden, and her laugh was gay:
“See, Vincen! Have you never heard them say
That when two find a nest in company,
On mulberry, or any other tree,
The Church within a year will join those two?
And proverbs, father says, are always true.”
“Yea,” quoth the lad; “but do not thou forget
That this, our happy hope, may perish yet,
If all the birdies be not caged forthwith.”
“Jesu divine!” the maiden murmureth:
“Put them by quickly! It concerns us much
Our birdies should be safe from alien touch.”
“Why, then, the very safest place,” said he,
“Methinks, Mirèio, would thy bodice be!”
“Oh, surely!” So the lad explores the hollow,
His hand withdrawing full of tomtits callow.
Four were they; and the maid in ecstacy
Cries “Mon Dieu!” and lifts her hands on high.
“How many! What a pretty brood it is!
There! There, poor darlings, give me just one kiss!”
And, lavishing a thousand fond caresses,
Tenderly, carefully, the four she presses
Inside her waist, obeying Vincen’s will;
While he, “Hold out thy hands! there are more still!”