Among these earlier poems are found some cleverly told, homely tales, with a pointed moral.  Such are La Plueio (The Rain), La Rascladuro de Petrin (The Scraping from the Kneading-trough).  They are really excellent, and teach the lesson that the tillers of the soil have a holy calling, of which they may be proud, and that God sends them health and happiness, peace and liberty.  The second of the poems just mentioned is a particularly amusing story of choosing a wife according to the care she takes of her kneading-trough, the idea being derived from an old fablieau.  There are one or two others purely humorous and capitally told.  After 1860, however, the poet abandoned these homely, simple tales, that doubtless realized Roumanille’s ideas of one aspect of the literary revival he was seeking to bring about.

The poems are not arranged chronologically, but are classified as Songs, Romances, Sirventes, Reveries, Plaints, Sonnets, Nuptial Songs, etc.

The Cansoun (Songs) are sung at every reunion of the Felibrige.  They are set to melodies well known in Provence, and are spirited and vigorous indeed.  The Germans who write about Provence are fond of making known the fact that the air of the famous Hymn to the Sun is a melody written by Kuecken.  There is Lou Bastimen (The Ship), as full of dash and go as any English sea ballad. La Coutigo (The Tickling) is a dialogue between a mother and her love-sick son. La Coupo (The Cup) is the song of the Felibres par excellence; it was composed for the reception of a silver cup, sent to the Felibres by the Catalans.  The coupo felibrenco is now a feature of all their banquets.  The song expresses the enthusiasm of the Felibres for their cause.  The refrain is, “Holy cup, overflowing, pour out in plenty the enthusiasms and the energy of the strong.”  The most significant lines are:—­

    Of a proud, free people
    We are perhaps the end;
    And, if the Felibres fall,
    Our nation will fall.

    Of a race that germs anew
    Perhaps we are the first growth;
    Of our land we are perhaps
    The pillars and the chiefs.

    Pour out for us hope
    And dreams of youth,
    The memory of the past
    And faith in the coming year.

The ideas and sentiments, then, that are expressed in the shorter poems of Mistral, written since the publication of Mireio, have been, in the main, the ancient glories and liberties of Provence, a clinging to national traditions, to local traditions, and to the religion and ideas of ancestors, a profound dislike of certain modern ideas of progress, hatred of the levelling influence of Paris, love of the Provencal speech, belief in the Latin race, in the Roman Catholic Church, unshaken faith in the future, love of the ideal and hatred of what is servile and sordid, an ardent love of Nature, an intense love of life and movement.  These things are reflected in every variety of word and figure.  He is not the poet of the romantic type, self-centred, filling his verse with the echoes of his own loves and joys and woes, nor is his poetry as large as humanity; Provence, France, the Latin race, are the limits beyond which it has no message or interest.