that God rules, the great sun, rises, illumines, and procreates
endlessly new enthusiasms, new lovers."

The poem clearly symbolizes the Provencal renascence; Calendau typifies
the modern Provencal people, rising to an ideal life and great
achievements through the memory of their traditions, and this ideal,
this memory, are personified in the person of the beautiful Princess.

The time of the action is the eighteenth century, before the Revolution.
This is a deliberate choice of the poet who has a temporal symbolism in
mind. "I shall thus combine in my picture the three aspects of Provence
on the eve of the Revolution: in the background, the noble legends of
the past; in the foreground the social corruption of the evil days; and
before us the better future, the future and the reparation personified
in the son of the working classes, guardians of the tradition of the
country."

As regards the execution, it is masterly, and cannot be ranked below
_Mireio_. There is the same enthusiastic love of nature, the same
astonishing resources of expression, the same novelty and originality.
In place of the rustic nature of Mireio, we have the wild grandeur of
mountains and sea. There is the same, nay, even greater, eloquence of
the speakers, the same musical verse.

"Car, d'aquesto ouro, ounto es la raro
Que di delice nous separo,
Jouine, amourous que siam, libre coume d'auceu?
Regardo: la Naturo brulo
A noste entour, e se barrulo
Dins li bras de l'Estieu, e chulo
Lou devourant alen de soun nove rousseu.

"Li serre clar e blu, li colo
Palo de la calour e molo,
Boulegon trefouli si mourre.... Ve la mar:
Courouso e lindo coumo un veire,
Dou grand souleu i rai beveire
Enjusqu'au founs se laisso veire,
Se laisso coutiga per lou Rose e lou Var."

"For now, where is the limit that separates us from joy, young, amorous
as we are, free as birds! Look: Nature burns around us and rolls in the
arms of Summer, and drinks in the devouring breath of her ruddy spouse.
The clear, blue peaks, the hills, pale and soft with the heat, are
thrilled and stir their rounding summits. Behold the sea, glistening and
limpid as glass; in the thirsty rays of the great sun, she allows
herself to be seen clear to the bottom, to be caressed by the Rhone and
the Var."

These are the words of Calendau when, seeking hi