Of wind was the Rhone’s bosom agitated,
The waves drove seaward like a herd belated;
But round about the but an azure mere
Spread tranquilly. The billows brake not here:
A pleasant shelter gave the willow-trees,
And beavers gnawed their bitter bark in peace.
While yonder, through the deep of limpid water,
Darted at intervals the dark brown otter,
Following the silver-flashing fish. Among
The reeds and willows, pendulines had hung
Their tiny nests, white woven with the wool
Plucked from the poplar when its flowers are full.
And here the small things fluttered full of glee,
Or swang on wind-rocked stems right lazily.
Here, too, a sprightly lassie, golden-haired,—
Head like a crown-cake!—back and forward fared,
And spread on a fig-tree a fishing-net
Unwieldy and with water dripping yet.
Birds, beavers, otters, feared the maid no more
Than whispering reeds or willows of the shore.
This was the daughter of the basket-weaver,
The little Vinceneto. No one ever
Had even bored her ears, poor child! yet so
Her eyes were damson-blue, her bosom low,—
A caper-blossom by the river-side,
Wooed by the splashing of the amorous tide.
But now old Ambroi, with his long white beard
Flowing o’er all his breast, his head upreared,
And answered Vincen’s outcry: “What is’t? Mad?
You are a blockhead! that is all, my lad!”
“Ah!” said the other, “for the ass to stray,
Sweet must the mead be. But what do I say?
Thou knowest her! If she to Arles should fare,
All other maids would hide them in despair;
For, after her, I think the mould was broken.
And what say to the words herself hath spoken,
“‘You I will have!’”—“Why, naught, poor fool! say I:
Let poverty and riches make reply!”
“O father!” Vincen cried, “go, I implore thee,
To Lotus Farm, and tell them all the story!
Tell them to look for virtue, not for gain!
Tell them that I can plough a stony plain,
“Or harrow, or prune vines with any man!
Tell them their six yoke, with my guiding, can
Plough double! Tell them I revere the old;
And, if they part us for the sake of gold,
We shall both die, and they may bury us!”
“Oh, fie! But you are young who maunder thus,”
Quoth Master Ambroi. “All this talk I know.
The white hen’s egg, the chaffinch on the bough,
You’ll have the pretty bird this very minute!
Whistle, bring sugared cake, or die to win it;
Yet will the chaffinch never come, be sure,
And perch upon your finger! You are poor!”
“Plague on my poverty!” poor Vincen cried,
Tearing his hair. “Is God who hath denied
All that could make life worthy,—is He just?
And wherefore are we poor? And wherefore must
We still the refuse of the vineyard gather,
While others pluck the purple clusters rather?”