“Ah, now he sees us! And my sister Zeto, Who helped him with her shoulder, turns this way too; And seems to tell my mother that she may Put on the _bouillabaise_ without delay. And mother also, I can see her leaning Over the boat, and the fresh fish a-gleaning.” Then, as the two made haste with one accord To mount the dike, the lusty fisher roared, “Now this is charming! Look this way, my wife! Our little Andreloun, upon my life, Will be the prince of fishers one day,” said he; “For he has caught the queen of eels already!” CANTO IX. _The Muster._ All sorrowfully droop the lotus-trees; And heart-sick to their hives withdraw the bees, Forgetful of the heath with savoury sweet, And with milk-thistle. Water-lilies greet Kingfishers blue that to the vivary hie, And “Have you seen Mirèio?” is their cry. While Ramoun and his wife by the fireside Are sitting, lost in grief, and swollen-eyed, And at their hearts the bitterness of death. “Doubtless,” they said, “her reason wandereth. Oh, what a mad and wretched maid it is! Oh, what a heavy, cruel downfall this! “Oh, dire disgrace! Our beauty and our hope So with the last of trampers to elope! Fled with a gypsy! And who shall discover The secret hole of this kidnapping lover, Where he the shameless one concealèd hath?” And, as they spake, they knit their brows in wrath. Now came the cupbearer with ass and pannier, And from the threshold, in his wonted manner, “Good-morrow,” Jane. “I’m come,” he said, “to seek The labourer’s lunch.” And Ramoun could but wreak His anguish on him. “Go, you cursèd churl! I’m as a cork-tree barked, without my girl!” “Yet hark ye, cupbearer, upon your track Across the fields like lightning go you back, And bid the ploughmen and the mowers all Quit ploughs and scythes, the harvesters let fall Their sickles, and their shepherds too,” said he, “Forsake their flocks, and instant come to me!” Then, fleeter than a goat, the faithful man O’er stony fallow and red clover ran, Threaded holm-oaks on long declivities, Leaped o’er the roads along the base of these, And now already scents the sweet perfume Of new-mown hay, and the blue-tufted bloom Of tall lucerne descries; and presently The measured sweep of the long scythes hears he, And lusty mowers bending in a row Beholds, and grass by the keen steel laid low In verdant swaths,--ever a pleasant sight,-- And children, and young maidens, with delight Raking the hay and in cocks piling it; While crickets, that before the mowers flit, Hark to their singing. Also, farther on, An ash-wood cart, by two white oxen drawn, Where a deft cartman, piles the well-cured grass By armfuls high and higher, till the mass