Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MIREIO: THE MARES OF THE CAMARGUE, by FREDERIC MISTRAL



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MIREIO: THE MARES OF THE CAMARGUE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A hundred mares, all white! Their manes
Last Line: The stallions of camargue, all joyful in the roar.
Subject(s): Animals; Horses


A HUNDRED mares, all white! their manes
Like mace-weed of the marshy plains
Thick-tufted, wavy, free o' the shears:
And when the fiery squadron rears
Bursting at speed, each mane appears
Even as the white scarf of a fay
Floating upon their necks along the heavens away.

O race of humankind, take shame!
For never yet a hand could tame,
Nor bitter spur that rips the flanks subdue
The mares of the Camargue. I have known,
By treason snared, some captives shown;
Expatriate from their native Rhone,
Led off, their saline pastures far from view;

And on a day, with prompt rebound,
They have flung their riders to the ground
And at a single gallop, scouring free,
Wide nostril'd to the wind, twice ten
Of long marsh-leagues devour'd, and then,
Back to the Vacarés again,
After ten years of slavery just to breathe salt sea.

For of this savage race unbent
The ocean is the element.
Of old escaped from Neptune's car, full sure
Still with the white foam fleck'd are they
And when the seas puff black from gray,
And ships part cables, loudly neigh
The stallions of Camargue, all joyful in the roar.





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