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(From Mirèio)
Translated by Harriet W. Preston
THE LITTLE boat, in Andreloun’s control, | |
| Parted the water silent as a sole, | |
| The while the enamored maiden whom I sing, | |
| Herself on the great Rhone adventuring, | |
| Beside the urchin sat, and scanned the wave | 5 |
| Intently, with a dreamy eye and grave, | |
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| Till the boy-boatman spake: “Now knewest thou ever, | |
| Young lady, how immense is the Rhone river? | |
| Betwixt Camargue and Crau might holden be | |
| Right noble jousts! That is Camargue!” said he; | 10 |
| “That isle so vast it can discern, I deem, | |
| All the seven mouths of the Arlesian stream.” | |
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| The rose-lights of the morn were beauteous | |
| Upon the river, as he chatted thus. | |
| And the tartanes, with snowy sails outspread, | 15 |
| Tranquilly glided up the stream, impelled | |
| By the light breeze that blew from off the deep, | |
| As by a shepherdess her milk-white sheep. | |
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| And all along the shore was noble shade | |
| By feathery ash and silver poplar made, | 20 |
| Whose hoary trunks the river did reflect, | |
| And giant limbs with wild vines all bedeckt | |
| With ancient vines and tortuous, that upbore | |
| Their knotty, clustered fruit the waters o’er. | |
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| Majestically calm, but wearily | 25 |
| And as he fain would sleep, the Rhone passed by | |
| Like some great veteran dying. He recalls | |
| Music and feasting in Avignon’s halls | |
| And castles, and profoundly sad is he | |
| To lose his name and waters in the sea. | 30 |
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