Similar lyrical production went on over most parts of Italy; the Sicilian songs, after the Tuscan, being the most numerous, or at least the best preserved. These ditties fall generally into two divisions, _rispetti_ and _stornelli_: the former consisting of four or six verses rhyming alternately, followed by a couplet; the latter of three lines only, the last rhyming with the first. These soon developed into the _madrigal_, a form affected by persons of culture and professional musicians, but the people continued to carol as of old. Thus, spontaneous births of the instinct for love and song, undergoing countless modifications in passing from mouth to mouth, until the right form has been found at last, and sifted by the taste of generation after generation, these little songs have formed a really beautiful collection of verse, reflecting in their ardour, graceful fancy and purity of sentiment, the best characteristics of the race from which they sprung. How good they are may be seen from a few of the specimens so admirably rendered by John Addington Symonds:[10]-- _The moon has risen her plaint to lay Before the face of Love Divine; Saying in heaven she will not stay, Since you have stolen what made her shine. Aloud she wails with sorrow wan;-- She told her stars, and two are gone: They are not there; ye have them now; They are the eyes in your bright brow._ _Think it no grief that I am brown; For all brunettes are born to reign: White is the snow, yet trodden down; Black pepper, kings do not disdain: White snow lies mounded in the vales; Black pepper’s weighed in brazen scales._ _O Swallow, Swallow, flying through the air, Turn, turn, I prithee, from thy flight above. Give me one feather from thy wing so fair, For I will write a letter to my love. When I have written it and made it clear, I’ll give thee back thy feather, Swallow dear; When I have written it on paper white, I’ll make, I swear, thy missing feather right; When once ’tis written on fair leaves of gold, I’ll give thee back thy wings and flight so bold._