is there that the veglia, or evening rendezvous of lovers, the serenades and balls and feste, of which one hears so much in the popular minstrelsy, take place.  Of course it would not be difficult to paint the darker shades of this picture.  Autumn comes, when the contadini of Lucca and Siena and Pistoja go forth to work in the unwholesome marshes of the Maremma, or of Corsica and Sardinia.  Dismal superstitions and hereditary hatreds cast their blight over a life externally so fair.  The bad government of centuries has perverted in many ways the instincts of a people naturally mild and cheerful and peace-loving.  But as far as nature can make men happy, these husbandmen are surely to be reckoned fortunate, and in their songs we find little to remind us of what is otherwise than sunny in their lot.

A translator of these Volkslieder has to contend with difficulties of no ordinary kind.  The freshness of their phrases, the spontaneity of their sentiments, and the melody of their unstudied cadences, are inimitable.  So again is the peculiar effect of their frequent transitions from the most fanciful imagery to the language of prose.  No mere student can hope to rival, far less to reproduce, in a foreign tongue, the charm of verse which sprang untaught from the hearts of simple folk, which lives unwritten on the lips of lovers, and which should never be dissociated from singing.[29] There are, besides, peculiarities in the very structure of the popular rispetto.  The constant repetition of the same phrase with slight variations, especially in the closing lines of the ripresa of the Tuscan rispetto, gives an antique force and flavour to these ditties, like that which we appreciate in our own ballads, but which may easily, in the translation, degenerate into weakness and insipidity.  The Tuscan rhymester, again, allows himself the utmost licence.  It is usual to find mere assonances like bene and piacere, oro and volo, ala and alata, in the place of rhymes; while such remote resemblances of sound as colli and poggi, lascia and piazza, are far from uncommon.  To match these rhymes by joining ‘home’ and ‘alone,’ ‘time’ and ‘shine,’ &c, would of course be a matter of no difficulty; but it has seemed to me on the whole best to preserve, with some exceptions, such accuracy as the English ear requires.  I fear, however, that, after all, these wild-flowers of song, transplanted to another climate and placed in a hothouse, will appear but pale and hectic by the side of their robuster brethren of the Tuscan hills.

In the following serenade many of the peculiarities which I have just noticed occur.  I have also adhered to the irregularity of rhyme which may be usually observed about the middle of the poem (p. 103):—­

  Sleeping or waking, thou sweet face,
  Lift up thy fair and tender brow: 
  List to thy love in this still place;
  He calls thee to thy window now: 
  But bids thee not the house to quit,
  Since in the night this were not meet. 
  Come to thy window, stay within;
  I stand without, and sing and sing: 
  Come to thy window, stay at home;
  I stand without, and make my moan.