Even like that which once arose upon Our own Beaucaire, in days how long withdrawn! When came a host of terrible invaders, The great Simon, and all the French crusaders, Led by a legate, and in fierce advance Count Raymond slaughtered and laid waste Provence. And here, with gleanings falling from her fingers, Full many a merry gleaner strays and lingers; Or in the warm lea of the stacks of corn, Or ’mid the canes, drops languidly, o’erborne By some long look, that e’en bewilders her, Because Love also is a harvester. And yet again the master’s word,--“Go back Like lightning, cupbearer, upon your track, And bid the ploughmen and the mowers all Quit ploughs and scythes, the harvesters let fall Their sickles, and the shepherds instantly Forsake their flocks, and hither come to me!” Then fleeter than a goat sped on his way The faithful soul, straight through the olives gray, On, on, like a north-eastern gale descending Upon the vineyards, and the branches rending, Until, away in Crau, the waste, the lonely, Behold him, where the partridge whirreth only; And, still remote, discovers he the flocks Tranquilly lying under the dwarf-oaks, And the chief-shepherd, with his helpers young, For noon-tide rest about the heather flung, And little wagtails hopping at their ease O’er sheep that ruminate unmoved by these. And slowly, slowly sailing o’er the sea Diaphanous vapours, light and white, sees he, And deems that up in heaven some fair saint, Gliding too near the sun, is stricken faint On the aerial heights, and hath let fall Her convent-veil. And still the herald’s call:-- “Hark, shepherds, to the master’s word,--‘Go back Like lightning, cupbearer, upon your track, And bid the ploughmen and the mowers all Quit ploughs and scythes, the reapers too let fall Their sickles, and the shepherds instantly Forsake their flocks, and hither come to me!” Then the scythes rested and the ploughs were stayed, The forty highland reapers each his blade Let fall, and rushed as bees on new-found wings Forsake the hive, begin their wanderings, And, by the din of clanging cymbals led, Gather them to a pine. So also fled The labourers one and all; the waggoners, And they who tended them; the rick-builders, Gleaners, and shepherds, and of sheaves the heapers, Binders of sheaves, rakers, mowers, and reapers, Mustered them at the homestead. There, heart-sore And silent, on the grass-grown treading-floor, The master and his wife sat down to bide The coming of the hands; who, as they hied Thither, much marvelled at the strange behest So calling them from toil, and who addrest These words unto old Ramoun, drawing near: “Thou sentest for us, master. We are here.”