poetic ideas, and contain among their number gems of purest poesy. The
poet's lyre has not many strings, and the strains of sadness, of pensive
melancholy, are almost absent. Mistral has once, and very successfully,
tried the theme of Lainartine's _Lac_, of Musset's _Souvenir_, of Hugo's
_Tristesse d'Olympio_; but his poem is not an elegy, it has not the
intensity, the passion, the deep undertone of any of the three great
Romanticists. _La Fin dóu Meissounié_ is a beautiful, pathetic, and
touching tale, that easily brings a tear, and _Lou Saume de la
Penitènci_ is without doubt one of the noblest poems inspired in the
heart of any Frenchman by the disaster of 1870. But these poems, though
among the best according to the feeling for poetry of a reader from
northern lands, are not characteristic of the volume in general. The
dominant strain is energy, a clarion-call of life and light, an appeal
to his fellow-countrymen to be strong and independent; the sun of
Provence, the language of Provence, the ideals of Provence, the memories
of Provence, these are his themes. His poetry is not personal, but
social. Of his own joys and sorrows scarce a word, unless we say what is
doubtless the truth, that his joys and sorrows, his regrets and hopes,
are identical with those of his native land, and that he has blended his
being completely with the life about him. The volume contains a great
number of pieces written for special occasions, for the gatherings of
the Félibres, for their weddings. Many of them are addressed to persons
in France and out, who have been in various ways connected with the
Félibrige. Of these the greeting to Lamartine is especially felicitous
in expression, and the following stanza from it forms the dedication of
_Mirèio_:--

"Te counsacre Mirèio: eo moun cor e moun amo,
Es la flour de mis an;
Es un rasin de Crau qu' emé touto sa ramo