Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
France: Vols. IX–X. 1876–79.

Martigue

The Suitors

By Frédéric Mistral (1830–1914)

(From Mirèio)
Translated by Harriet W. Preston

WHEN violets are blue in the blue shadows

Of the o’erhanging trees,

The youth who stray in pairs about the meadows

Are glad to gather these.

When peace descends upon the troubled Ocean,

And he his wrath forgets,

Flock from Martigue the boats with wing-like motion,

The fishes fill the nets.

And when the girls of Crau bloom into beauty

(And fairer earth knows not),

Aye are there suitors ready for their duty

In castle and in cot.