“Thou fair Marseilles, who openest on the sea
Thy haughty eyes and gazest languidly,
As though naught else were worthy to behold,
And, though the winds rage, dreamest but of gold,
When Lazarus preached to thee, thou didst begin
Those eyes to close, and see the night within,
“And to the sources of that river speeding,
That aye the tears of Magdalene were feeding,
Didst wash thy sins away: and in this hour
Art proud once more; but other storms may lower.
Forget not, then, amid thy revelries,
Whose tears they are that bathe thine olive-trees!
“Dark cedars that on Mount Sambuco grew,
Sheer ledges of the hills of Aix, and you,
Tall pines, clothing the flanks of Esterel,
And junipers of Trevaresso, tell
How thrilled your vales with joy, when, his cross bearing,
The bishop Maximin was through them faring.
“Seest thou one with white arms on her breast,
Who kneels and prays in yonder grotto, dressed
In the bright garment of her floating hair?
Poor sufferer! Her tender knees are bare,
And cruelly by the sharp flints are torn.
The moon, with pale torch, watches the forlorn
“And sad recluse. The woods in silence bow.
The angels hush their very heart-throbs now,
As, gazing through a crevice, they espy
A pearly tear fall from the lifted eye,
And haste the precious gem to gather up,
And keep for ever in a golden cup.
“Enough, O Magdalene! Thirty years ago,
The wind that in the forest whispers low
Bare thee the pardon of the Man divine!
The tears that the rock weeps are tears of thine.
These, like a snowfall softly sprinkled o’er,
Shall whiten woman’s love for ever more!
“But naught can stay the mourner’s gnawing grief.
Even the little birds bring not relief,
That flock around her, building many a nest
On Saint Pilon; nor spirits of the blest,
Who lift and rock her in their arms of love,
And soar, seven times a day, the vales above.
“O Lord, be thine the glory! And may we
In thy full brightness and reality
Behold thee ever! Poor and fugitive,
We women did of thy great grace receive.
We, even we, touched by thy love supernal,
Shed some faint reflex of the light eternal.
“Ye, Alpine peaks and all blue hills of Baux,
Unto the latest hour of time will show
The traces of our teaching carved in stone!
And so Death found us on the marshes lone,
Deep in Camargue, encircled by the sea,
And from our day’s long labour set us free.
“And as, on earth, haste all things to decay,
Faded the memory of our tombs away.
While sang Provence her songs, and time rolled on,
Till, as Durance is blended with the Rhone,
Ended the merry kingdom of Provence,
And fell asleep upon the breast of France.