the diphthong, a _u_ or an _i_, constitutes a consonant either before or
after a vowel in another word, being really a _w_ or a _y_. This
prevents hiatus, which is banished from Provençal verse as it is from
French, and here again theory and practice are in accord, for the
elision of the _e mute_ where this _e_ follows a vowel readmits hiatus
into the French line, and no such phenomenon is known to the Provençal.
Thirdly, the stressed syllable of each word is strongly marked, and
verse exists as strongly and regularly accentual as in English or
German. This is seen in the numerous poems written to be sung to an air
already existing. The accents in these pieces fall with the rhythmic
beat the English ear is accustomed to and which it so misses on first
acquaintance with French verse. A second consequence of this stronger
stress is that verse is written without rhyme; the entire _Poem of the
Rhone_ is written in ten-syllable feminine verses unrhymed.

"O tèms di vièi d'antico bounoumío,
Que lis oustau avien ges de sarraio
E que li gènt, à Coundriéu coume au nostre,
Se gatihavon, au calèu pèr rire!"

(Canto I.)

Mistral has made use of all the varieties of verse known to the French
poets. One of the poems in the _Isclo d'Or_ offers an example of
fourteen-syllable verse; it is called _L'Amiradou_ (The Belvedere). Here
are the first two stanzas:--

"Au castèu de Tarascoun, i'a 'no rèino, i'a 'no fado
Au castèu de Tarascoun
I'a 'no fado que s'escound.