Yet grows the torment ever more and more;
The sun ascending higher than before,
Till, as a starvèd lion’s eye devours
The Abyssinian desert that he scours,
Yon lidless orb the very zenith gains
And pours a flood of fire o’er all the plains.
Now were it sweet beneath a beech to slumber!
Now, like a swarm of hornets without number,—
An angry swarm, fierce darting high and low,—
Or liks the hot sparks from a grindstone, grow
The pitiless rays; and Love’s poor pilgrim, worn
And gasping, and by weariness o’erborne,
Forth from her bodice draws its golden pin,
So that her panting bosom shows within.
All dazzling white, like the campanulas
That bloom beside the summer sea, it was,
And, like twin-billows in a brooklet, full.
Anon, the solitary scene and dull
Loses a little of its sadness, and
A lake shows on the limit of the land,—
A spacious lake, whose wavelets dance and shine,—
While shrubs of golden-herb and jessamine
On the dark shore appear to soar aloft
Until they cast a shadow cool and soft.
It seems to the poor maid a heavenly vision,
A heartening glimpse into the land elysian.
And soon, afar, by that blue wave she sees
A town with circling walls and palaces,
And fountains gay, and churches without end,
And slender spires that to the sun ascend,
And ships and lesser sailing-craft, sun-bright,
Entering the port; and the wind seemeth light.
So that the oriflambs and streamers all
Languidly round the masts arise and fall.
“A miracle!” the maiden thought, and now
Wipes the abundant moisture from her brow,
And, with new hope, toward the town doth fare,
Deeming the Maries’ tomb is surely there.
Alas! alas! be her flight ne’er so speedy,
A change will pass upon the scene. Already
The sweet illusion seems to fade and flit;
Recedes the vision as she follows it.
An airy show, the substance of a dream,
By spirit woven out of a sunbeam,
And all its fair hues borrowed from the sky,—
The filmy fabric wavers presently,
And melts away, and like a mist is gone.
Bewildered by the heat, and quite alone,
Is left Mirèio: yet her way she keeps,
Toiling over the burning, yielding heaps
Of sand; over the salt-encrusted waste—
Seamed, swollen, dazzling to the eye—doth haste.
On through the tall marsh-grasses and the reeds
And rushes, haunted by the gnat, she speeds,
With Vincen ever in her thought. And soon,
Skirting the lonesome Vacarès lagune,
She sees it loom at last in distance dim,—
She sees it grow on the horizon’s rim,—
The Saints’ white tower, across the billowy plain,
Like vessel homeward bound upon the main.