“They bear my mark, and are of fine breed, all;
And for my shepherdess, when one I call
My own, the nightingales will ever sing.
And dared I hope you’d take my offering,
Mirèio dear, no gems I’d tender you,
But a carved box-wood cup,—mine own work too!”
Therewith he brought to light a goblet fair,
Wrapped like some sacred relic with all care,
And carven of box-wood green. It was his pleasure
Such things to fashion in his hours of leisure;
And, sitting rapt upon some wayside stone,
He wrought divinely with a knife alone.
He carved him castanets with fingers light,
So that his flock would follow him at night
Through the dark fields, obedient to their tones.
And on the ringing collars, and the bones
That served for bell-tongues, he would cut with skill
Faces and figures, flowers and birds, at will.
As for the goblet he was tendering,
You would have said that no such fairy thing
Was ever wrought by shepherd’s knife or wit:
A full-flowered poppy wreathed the rim of it;
And in among the languid flowers there
Two chamois browsed, and these the handles were.
A little lower down were maidens three,
And certes they were marvellous to see:
Near by, beneath a tree, a shepherd-lad
Slept, while on tiptoe stole the maidens glad,
And sought to seal his lips, ere he should waken,
With a grape-cluster from their basket taken.
Yet even now he smiles at their illusion,
So that the foremost maid is all confusion.
The odour of the goblet proved it new:
The giver had not drunk therefrom; and you
Had said, but for their woody colouring,
The carven shapes were each a living thing.
Mirèio scanned the fair cup curiously.
“A tempting offering thine, shepherd!” said she:
But suddenly, “A finer one than this
Hath my heart’s lord! Shepherd, his love it is!
Mine eyes close, his impassioned glances feeling:
I falter with the rapture o’er me stealing!”
So saying, she vanished like a tricksy sprite;
And Alari turned, and in the gray twilight
Ruefully, carefully, he folded up
And bore away again his carven cup,
Deeming it sad and strange this winsome elf
Her love should yield to any but himself.
Soon to the farm came suitor number two,
A keeper of wild horses from Sambu,—
Veran, by name. About his island bower
In the great prairies, where the asters flower,
He used to keep a hundred milk-white steeds,
Who nipped the heads of all the lofty reeds.
A hundred steeds! Their long manes flowing free
As the foam-crested billows of the sea!
Wavy and thick and all unshorn were they;
And when the horses on their headlong way
Plunged all together, their dishevelled hair
Seemed the white robes of creatures of the air.