The fortieth discourse of the “Cours familier de Littérature” appeared a month later (1859) under the title of “The Appearance of an Epic Poem in Provence.” Lamartine devoted eighty pages to the poem of _Mireille_, and this glorification was the crowning event of the numberless articles which had welcomed the rustic epic in the press of Provence, of Languedoc, and of Paris. I testified my gratitude in the Provençal quatrain, which I inscribed at the head of the second edition. TO LAMARTINE. To thee alone _Mireille_ I dedicate; My heart, my soul, my flower, the best of me, A bunch of Crau’s sweet grapes and leaves, that late A peasant offers thee. _September 8, 1859._ And the following is the elegy that I published on the death of the great man, ten years later (1869). ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF LAMARTINE.[18] When the day-star draws near to the hour of his setting, When dusk clothes the hills, and the shepherds are letting Their sheep and their herds and their dogs go free, Then up from the marshlands, all groaning together, Come the wails of the toilers through sweltering weather: “That sunshine was nearly the death of me!” Thou, of God’s holy words the magnanimous preacher, Even so, Lamartine, O my father, my teacher, When by song, and by deed, and consoling tear, Thou did’st lavish thy love and thy light unsparing, Till the world had its fill, and the world, not caring, Grew weary and sated, and would not hear: Then each one his taunt through the mist must needs fling thee, And each one a stone from his armoury sling thee: Thy splendour but hurt us, and tired our sight; For a star that grows dim and no longer can light them, And a crucified god--these will ever delight them, The ignorant crowd--and the toads love night. Oh, then were there seen things prodigious, by Heaven! Fresh youth to the soul of the world had he given, He, of purest poesy mighty source; Yet the new young rhymesters were moved to laughter O’er his sadness prophetic, and said thereafter “That he knew not the poet’s art, of course!” High-Priest of the great Adonaï, he raises The soul of our creeds by the heavenly praises He hymns on the strings of Sion’s golden harp! Yet, calling to witness the Scriptures proudly, “A man irreligious” they dub him loudly, The Pharisee bigots who mouth and carp. He, the great, tender heart who has sung the disaster Of our monarchs ancestral, and he, the master Who with pomp of marble has built their tomb, On him all the gapers who vow adoration To the Royalist cause, have pronounced condemnation; They call him insurgent--and give him room.