By tridents of the branders close behind,
Fell on the land like a destroying wind.
Heifers and bulls in headlong gallop borne
Plunged, crushing centaury and salicorne;
And at the branding-booth at last they mustered,
Just where a crowd three hundred strong had clustered.
A moment, as if scared, the beasts were still.
Then, when the cruel spur once more they feel,
They start afresh, into a run they break,
And thrice the circuit of the arena make;
As marterns fly a dog, or hawks afar
By eagles in the Luberon hunted are.
Then Ourrias—what ne’er was done before—
Leaped from his horse beside the circus-door
Amid the crowd. The cattle start again,
All saving five young bulls, and scour the plain;
But these, with flaming eyes and horns defying
Heaven itself, are through the arena flying.
And he pursues them. As a mighty wind
Drives on the clouds, he goads them from behind,
And presently outstrips them in the race;
Then thumps them with the cruel goad he sways,
Dances before them as infuriate,
And lets them feel his own fists’ heavy weight.
The people clap and shout, while Ourrias
White with Olympic dust encountered has
One bull, and seized him by the horns at length;
And now ’tis head to muzzle, strength for strength.
The monster strains his prisoned horns to free
Until he bleeds, and bellows horribly.
But vain his fury, useless all his trouble!
The neatherd had the art to turn and double
And force the huge head with his shoulder round,
And shove it roughly back, till on the ground
Christian and beast together rolled, and made
A formless heap like some huge barricade.
The tamarisks are shaken by the cry
Of “Bravo Ourrias! That’s done valiantly!”
While five stout youths the bull pin to the sward;
And Ourrias, his triumph to record,
Seizes the red-hot iron with eager hand,
The vanquished monster on the hip to brand.
Then came a troop of girls on milk-white ponies,—
Arlesians,—flushed and panting every one is,
As o’er the arena at full gallop borne
They offer him a noble drinking-horn
Brimful of wine; then turn and disappear,
Each followed by her faithful cavalier.
The hero heeds them not. His mind is set
On the four monsters to be branded yet:
The mower toils the harder for the grass
He sees unmown. And so this Ourrias
Fought the more savagely as his foes warmed,
And conquered in the end,—but not unharmed.
White-spotted and with horns magnificent,
The fourth beast grazed the green in all content.
“Now, man, enough!” in vain the neatherds shouted;
Couched is the trident and the caution flouted;
With perspiration streaming, bosom bare,
Ourrias the spotted bull charged then and there!