“Oh sweet! The little eyes in each blue head
Are sharp as needles,” as Mirèio said
Softly, three more of the wee brood she pressed
Into their smooth, white prison with the rest,
Who, when bestowed within that refuge warm,
Thought they were in their nest and safe from harm.
“Are there more, Vincen?”—“Ay!” he answered her.
“Then, Holy Virgin! you’re a sorcerer!”
“Thou simple maid! About St. George’s day,
Ten, twelve, and fourteen eggs, these tomtits lay.
Ay, often. Now let these the others follow!
They are the last: so good-bye, pretty hollow!”
But ere the words were spoken, and the maid
In her flowered neckerchief had fairly laid
Her little charge, she gave a piercing wail:
“Oh me! oh me!” then murmured, and turned pale;
And, laying both her hands upon her breast,
Moaned, “I am dying!” and was sore distressed,
And could but weep: “Ah, they are scratching me!
They sting! Come quickly, Vincent, up the tree!”
For on the last arrival had ensued
Wondrous commotion in the hidden brood;
The fledglings latest taken from the nest
Had sore disorder wrought among the rest.
Because within so very small a valley
All could not lie at ease, so must they gayly
Scramble with claw and wing down either slope,
And up the gentle hills, thus to find scope:
A thousand tiny somersets they turn,
A thousand pretty rolls they seem to learn.
And “Ah, come quick!” is still the maiden’s cry,
Trembling like vine-spray when the wind is high,
Or like a heifer stung with cattle-flies.
And, as she bends and writhes in piteous wise,
Leaps Vincen upward till he plants his feet
Once more beside her on her airy seat.
Sing, magnarello, heap your leaves,
While sunny is the weather!
He comes to aid her when she grieves:
The two are now together.
“‘Thou likest not this tickling?” kindly said he.
“What if thou wert like me, my gentle lady,
And hadst to wander barefoot through the nettles?”
So proffering his red sea-cap, there he settles
Fast as she draws them from her neckerchief
The birdies, to Mirèio’s vast relief.
Yet ah, poor dear, the downcast eyes of her!
She dares not look at her deliverer
For a brief space. But soon a smile ensues,
And the tears vanish, as the morning dews
That drench the flowers and grass at break of day
Roll into little pearls and pass away.
And then there came a fresh catastrophe:
The branch whereon they sat ensconced in glee
Snapped, broke asunder, and with ringing shriek
Mirèio flung her arms round Vincen’s neck,
And he clasped hers, and they whirled suddenly
Down through the leaves upon the supple rye.