“It was herself!” the shepherd-chief replied:
“I saw her in the star-light past me glide,
Not, surely, as she was in other days,
But lifting up a wan, affrighted face;
Whereby she was a living soul, I knew,
And stung by some exquisite anguish too.”
At this dread word, the labourers groan, and wring
Each other’s horny palms. “But who will bring,”
The stricken mother began wildly shrieking,
“Me to the saints? My bird I must be seeking!
My partridge of the stony field,” she said,
“I must o’ertake, wherever she has fled.
“And if the ants attack her, then these teeth
Shall grind them and their hill! If greedy Death
Dare touch my darling rudely, then will I
Break his old, rusty scythe, and she shall fly
Away across the jungle!” Crying thus,
Jano Mario fled delirious
Back to the home; while Ramoun order gave,
“Cartman, set up the cart-tilt, wet the nave,
And oil the axle, and without delay
Harness Moureto. We go far to-day,
And it is late.” The mother, in despair,
Mounted the cart; and more and more the air
Resounded with the transports of her woe:
“O pretty dear! O wilderness of Crau!
O endless, briny plains! O dreadful sun,
Be kind, I pray you, to the fainting one!
But for her,—the accursèd witch Taven,—
Who lured my darling into her foul den,
And poured before her, as I know right well,
Her philters and her potions horrible,
And made her drink,—now may the demons all
Who lured St. Anthony upon her fall,
And drag her body o’er the rocks of Baux!”
As the unhappy soul lamented so,
Her tones were smothered by the cart’s rude shaking;
And the farm-labourers, a last look taking
To see if none were coming o’er the plain,
Turned slowly, sadly, to their toil again;
While swarms of gnats, the idle, happy things,
Filled the green walks with sound of humming wings.
CANTO X.
Camargue.
LISTEN to me, good people of Provence,
Countrymen one and all, from Arles to Vence,
From Vanensolo even to Marseilles,
And, if the heat oppress you, come, I pray,
To Durancolo banks, and, lying low,
Hear the maid’s tale, and weep the lover’s woe!