[The cowherds of the Alps
  Arise at an early hour.

  CHORUS. 
  Ha, ah! ha, ah! 
  Liauba!  Liauba! in order to milk. 
    Come all of you,
    Black and white,
    Red and mottled,
    Young and old;
    Beneath this oak
    I am about to milk you. 
    Beneath this poplar,
    I am about to press,
    Liauba!  Liauba! in order to milk.]

The music of the mountains is peculiar and wild, having most probably received its inspiration from the grandeur of the natural objects.  Most of the sounds partake of the character of echoes, being high-keyed but false notes; such as the rocks send back to the valleys, when the voice is raised above its natural key in order to reach the caverns and savage recesses of inaccessible precipices.  Strains like these readily recall the glens and the magnificence amid which they were first heard, and hence, by an irresistible impulse, the mind is led to indulge in the strongest of all its sympathies, those which are mixed with the unalloyed and unsophisticated delights of buoyant childhood.

The herdsmen and dairymaids no sooner uttered the first notes of this magic song, than a deep and breathing stillness pervaded the crowd.  As the peculiar strains of the chorus rose on the ear, murmuring echoes issued from among the spectators, and ere the wild intonations could be repeated which accompanied the words “Liauba!  Liauba!” a thousand voices were lifted simultaneously, as it were, to greet the surrounding mountains with the salutations of their children.  From that moment the remainder of the Ranz des Vaches was a common burst of enthusiasm, the offspring of that national fervor, which forms so strong a link in the social chain, and which is capable of recalling to the bosom that, in other respects, has been hardened by vice and crime, a feeling of some of the purest sentiments of our nature.

The last strain died amid this general exhibition of healthful feeling.  The cowherds and the dairy-girls collected their different implements, and resumed their march to the melancholy music of the bells, which formed a deep contrast to the wild notes that had just filled the square.

To these succeeded the followers of Ceres, with the altar, the priestess, and the enthroned goddess, as has been already described in the approach of Flora.  Cornucopiae ornamented the chair of the deity, and the canopy was adorned with the gifts of autumn.  The whole was surmounted by a sheaf of wheat.  She held the sickle as her sceptre, and a tiara composed of the bearded grain covered her brow.  Reapers followed, bearing emblems of the season of abundance, and gleaners closed the train.  There was the halt, the chant, the chorus, and the song in praise of the beneficent goddess of autumn, as had been done by the votaries of the deity of flowers.  A dance of the reapers and gleaners followed, the threshers flourished their flails, and the whole went their way.