"Here a thousand hamlets laugh by the river-side, our skies laugh; everything is happy, everything lives," as the poet Jasmin sings of his native land.
At once inspiring and restful! This perfect balance is possible. Supremely good things may be in contrast but not in contradiction. So at least one believes in Provence.
The parting guest thinks wistfully of that delicious journey down stream, of the happy company in the Caburle, in Mistral's Poem of the Rhone; the old barge drifting with the current through the very heart of the country of Romance. Every city and hamlet, every bridge and ruin, the scene of a thousand stories....
He remembers with what an outburst the poet sings of the towers of Avignon, as the barge comes in sight of the city, flame-tinted with the setting sun:—
"e pinto
De resplendour reialo e purpurenco
Es Avignoun e lou Palais di Papo!
Avignoun! Avignoun sus sa grand Roco!
Avignoun, la galoio campaniero...."