He turned and faced her. Ah, she was enchanting! And as a charmèd bird falls dizzy, panting, So he. “Mirèio, thou’rt a sorceress! And I bedazzled by thy loveliness. Thy voice, too, mounts into this head of mine, And makes me like a man o’ercome with wine. “Why, can it be, Mirèio? Seest thou not Even now with thy embrace my brain is hot. I am a pack-bearer, and well may be A laughing-stock for evermore to thee, But thou shalt have the truth, dear, in this hour: I love thee, with a love that could devour! “Wert thou to ask,--lo, love I thee so much!-- The golden goat, that ne’er felt mortal touch Upon its udders, but doth only lick Moss from the base of the precipitous peak Of Baux,--I’d perish in the quarries there, Or bring thee down the goat with golden hair! “So much, that, if thou saidst, ‘I want a star,’ There is no stream so wild, no sea so far, But I would cross; no headsman, steel or fire, That could withhold me. Yea, I would climb higher Than peaks that kiss the sky, that star to wrest; And Sunday thou shouldst wear it on thy breast! “O my Mirèio! Ever as I gaze, Thy beauty fills me with a deep amaze. Once, when by Vaucluse grotto I was going, I saw a fig-tree in the bare rock growing; So very spare it was, the lizards gray Had found more shade beneath a jasmine spray. “But, round about the roots, once every year The neighbouring stream comes gushing, as I hear, And the shrub drinks the water as it rises, And that one drink for the whole year suffices. Even as the gem is cut to fit the ring, This parable to us is answering. “I am the fig-tree on the barren mountain; And thou, mine own, art the reviving fountain! Surely it would suffice me, could I feel That, once a year, I might before thee kneel, And sun myself in thy sweet face, and lay My lips unto thy fingers, as to-day!” Trembling with love, Mirèio hears him out, And lets him wind his arms her neck about And clasp her as bewildered. Suddenly, Through the green walk, quavers an old wife’s cry: “How now, Mirèio? Are you coming soon? What will the silk-worms have to eat at noon?” As ofttimes, at the coming on of night, A flock of sparrows on a pine alight And fill the air with joyous chirruping, Yet, if a passing gleaner pause and fling A stone that way, they to the neighbouring wood, By terror winged, their instant flight make good; So, with a tumult of emotion thrilled, Fled the enamoured two across the field. But when, her leaves upon her head, the maid Turned silently toward the farm, he stayed,-- Vincen,--and breathless watched her in her flight Over the fallow, till she passed from sight. CANTO III. _The Cocooning._