"With the swallows I take my flight,
The swallows returning to the sun;
Towards fair days do they go, quick, quick;
And I, quick, quick, towards my love,
With the swallows take my flight.
"Oh, I am very sick for home,
Sick for the home that my love haunts!
Far from that foreign country,
As the bird far from its nest,
I am very sick for home.
"From wave to wave, o'er the bitter waters,
Like a corse thrown to the seas,
In dreams am I borne onward
To the feet of her that's dear,
From wave to wave, o'er the bitter waters.
"On the shores I am there, dead!
My love in her arms supports me;
Speechless she gazes and weeps,
Lays her hand upon my heart,
And suddenly I live again!
"Then I clasp her, then I fold her
In my arms: 'I have suffered enough!
Stay, stay! I will not die!'
And as a drowning one I seize her,
And fold her in my arms.
"Far away, beyond the seas,
In my hours of reverie,
Oftentimes I make a voyage,
I often make a bitter voyage,
Far away, beyond the seas."
As may easily be seen, Aubanel writes not, like Roumanille, for his own people alone. His Muse is more ambitious, and seeks to interest by appealing to the sentiments in a language polished with all the art of its sister, the French. There are innumerable exquisite passages scattered through the work, which make us ready to believe in the figurative comparison of the prefacer, when he tells us that "the coral-grains of the 'Opened Pomegranate' will become in Provence the chaplet of lovers."
If Roumanille and Aubanel contented themselves with the publication of poems of no very ambitious length, the author of "Mirèio" aimed directly at enriching his language at the outset with an epic. He has given us in twelve cantos the song of Provence. He makes us see and feel the life of Languedoc,—traverse the Crau, that Arabia Petrasa of France,—see the Rhone, and the fair daughters of Arles, in their picturesque costumes,—see the wild bulls of the Camargo, the Pampas of the Mediterranean. We are among the growers of the silk-worm; we hear the home-songs and talks of the Mas, listen to the people's legends and tales of witchery, and can study the Middle-Age spirit that still in these regions endows every shrine with miracles, as we follow the pilgrimage to the chapel of the Three Marys.
"Mirèio" is all Provence living and breathing before us in a poem. No wonder, then, that, in the present dearth of poetry in France, this epic or idyl, call it as you will, was received with acclamations. M. René Taillandier has consecrated to it one of his most masterly articles in the "Revue des Deux Mondes." Lamartine has devoted to it a whole entretien in his "Cours de Littérature." It was discussed, quoted, translated in all the journals of the capital. We may revert to it at greater length in a future number of the "Atlantic."
The name of Jasmin, the harbor-poet of Agen, is already familiar to the English public. Professor Longfellow has translated his "Blind Girl of Castel-Cuillé." His name is known in Paris as well, perhaps, as that of any other living French poet, if we except Lamartine and Victor Hugo. Accompanied with a French translation, his principal poems, "Mous Soubenis," "L'Abuglo de Castel-Cuillé," "Francouneto," "Maltro l'Innoucento," "Lous Dus Frays Bessous," "La Semmâno d'un Fil," have been read as much north of the Loire as south.