fashion:--

"Cante uno chato de Prouvènço
Dins lis amour de sa jouvènço."

I sing a maiden of Provence
In her girlhood's love.

The invocation is addressed to Christ:--

Thou, Lord God of my native land,
Who wast born among the shepherd-folk,
Fire my words and give me breath.

The epic character of the poem is sustained further than in its mere
outward form; the manner of telling is truly epic. The art of the poet
is throughout singularly objective, his narrative is a narrative of
actions, his personages speak and move before us, without intervention
on the part of the author to analyze their thoughts and motives. He is
absent from his work even in the numerous descriptions. Everything is
presented from the outside.

From the outset the poem enjoyed great success, and the enthusiastic
praise of Lamartine contributed greatly thereto. In gratitude for this,
Mistral dedicated the work to Lamartine in one of his most happy
inspirations, and these dedicatory lines appear in _Lis Isclo d'Or_ and
in all the subsequent editions of _Mirèio_. Mistral had professed great
admiration for the author of _Jocelyn_ even before 1859, but as poets
they stand in marked contrast. We may partly define Mistral's art in
stating that it is utterly unlike that of Lamartine. Mistral's