Sus nosti front:
E dins la niue nosto galero
Pico d'a pro
Contro li ro."[13]

Another peculiar stanza is exhibited in _Lou Prego-Dieu_:--

"Ero un tantost d'aquest estieu
Que ni vihave ni dourmieu:
Fasieu miejour, tan que me plaise,
Lou cabassou
Toucant lou sou,
A l'aise."[14]

Perhaps the most remarkable of all in point of originality, not to say
queerness, is _Lou Blad de Luno_. The rhyme in _lin_ is repeated
throughout seventeen stanzas, and of course no word is used twice.

"La luno barbano
Debano
De lano.

S'entend peralin
L'aigo que lalejo
E batarelejo
Darrie lou moulin.

La luno barbano
Debano
De lin."[15]

The little poem, _Aubencho_, is interesting as offering two rhymes in
its nine lines.

Mistral's sonnets offer some peculiarities. He has one composed of lines
of six syllables, others of eight, besides those considered regular in
French, consisting, namely, of twelve syllables. The following sonnet
addressed to Roumania appears to be unique in form:--

"Quand lou chaple a pres fin, que lou loup e la russi
An rousiga lis os, lou souleu flamejant
Esvalis gaiamen lou brumage destrussi
E lou prat bataie tourno leu verdejant.

"Apres lou long trepe di Turc emai di Russi
T'an visto ansin renaisse, o nacioun de Trajan,
Coume l'astre lusent, que sort dou negre eslussi,
Eme lou nouvelun di chato de quinge an.

"E li raco latino
A ta lengo argentino
An couneigu l'ounour que dins toun sang i'avie;

"E t'apelant germano,
La Prouvenco roumano
Te mando, o Roumanio, un rampau d'oulivie."[16]

It would be a hopeless task for an English translator to attempt
versions of these poems that should reproduce the original strophe
forms. A few such translations have been made into German, which
possesses a much greater wealth of rhyme than English. Let us repeat
that it must not be imputed to Mistral as a fault that he is too clever
a versifier. His strophes are not the artificial complications of the
Troubadours, and if these greatly varied forms cost him effort to
produce, his art is most marvellously concealed. More likely it is that
the almost inexhaustible abundance of rhymes in the Provencal, and the
ease of construction of merely syllabic verse, explain in great measure
his fertility in the production of stanz