“The pilèd sheaves, foam-drenched. Their livers clung Fast to their ribs, and their jaws drivelling hung, When suddenly an icy, northern gale Smit, swept the floor,--and God’s blasphemers pale. It quakes! It parts! On a black caldron’s brink Now stand they, and their eyes with horror sink. “Then the sheaves whirl with fury terrible. Pitch-forkers, keepers, keepers-aids as well, Struggle to save them; but they naught can do: The van, the van-goats, and the mill-stones too, Horses and drivers, treading-floor, and master Are swallowed up in one immense disaster!” “You make me shudder!” poor Mirèio said. “Ah, but that is not all, my pretty maid! Thou thinkest me a little mad, may be: But on the morrow thou the spot wilt see; And carp and tench in the blue water playing, And, in the reeds, marsh-blackbirds roundelaying. “But on Our Lady’s day, when mounts again The fire-crowned sun to the meridian, Lay thee down softly, ear to earth,” said he, “And eye a-watch, and presently thou’lt see The gulf, at first so limpid, will begin To darken with the shadow of the sin; “And slowly up from the unquiet deep A murmuring sound, like buzzing flies, will creep; And then a tinkling, as of tiny bells, That soon into an awful uproar swells Among the water-weeds! Like human voices Inside an amphora the fearsome noise is! “And then it is the trot of wasted horses Painfully tramping round their weary courses Upon a hard, dry surface, evermore Echoing like a summer threshing-floor, Whom drives a brutal keeper, nothing loth, And hurries them with insult and with oath. “But, when the holy sun is sinking low, The blasphemies turn hoarse and fainter grow, The tinkling dies among the weeds. Far off, The limping, sorry steed is heard to cough; And, on the top of the tall reeds a-swinging, Once more the blackbirds begin sweetly singing.” So, full of chat, and with his basket laden, Travelled the little man before the maiden; While the descending sun with rose invests The great blue ramparts and the golden crests Of the hill-range, peaceful and pure and high, Blending its outline with the evening sky. Seemed the great orb, as he withdrew in splendour, God’s peace unto the marshes to surrender, And to the great lake, and the olives gray Of the Vaulungo, and the Rhone away There in the distance, and the reapers weary, Who now unbend, and quaff the sea-air, cheery. Till the boy cries that far away he sees The home-tent’s canvas fluttering in the breeze. “And the white poplar, dear maid, seest thou? And brother Not, who climbs it even now? He’s there after cicalas, be thou sure; Or to spy me returning o’er the moor.