The most characteristic forms of the love-songs of Sicily are those of the _ciuri_, called in Tuscany _stornelli_, and the _canzuni_, called in Tuscany _rispetti_. The _ciuri_ (flowers) are couplets or triplets beginning with the name of a flower, with which the other line or lines should rhyme. They abound throughout the island, and notwithstanding the poor estimation in which the peasants hold them, and the difficulty of persuading them that they are worth putting on record, a very dainty compliment--just the thing to figure on a valentine--may often be found compressed into their diminutive compass. To turn such airy nothings into a language foreign and uncongenial to them, is like manipulating a soap-bubble: the bubble vanishes, and we have only a little soapy water left in the hollow of our hand: a simile which unhappily is not far from holding good of attempts at translating any species of Italian popular poetry. It is true that in _Fra Lippo Lippi_ there are two or three charming imitations of the _stornello_; but, then, Mr Browning is the poet who, of all others, has got most inside of the Italian mind. Here is an _aubade_, which will give a notion of the unsubstantial stuff the _ciuri_ are made of: Rosa marina, Lucinu l'alba e la stidda Diana: Lu cantu e fattu, addui, duci Rusina. "Rose of the sea, the dawn and the star Diana are shining: the song is done, farewell sweet Rosina." One of these flower-poets, invoking the Violet by way of heading, tells his love that "all men who look on her forget their sorrows;" another takes his oath that she outrivals sun, and moon, and stars. "Jasmine of Araby," cries a third, "when thou art not near, I am consumed by rage." A fourth says, "White floweret, before thy door I make a great weeping." A fifth, night and day, bewails his evil fate. A sixth observes that he has been singing for five hours, but that he might just as well sing to the wind. A seventh feels the thorns of jealousy. An eighth asks, "Who knows if Rosa will not listen to another lover?" A ninth exclaims, Flower of the night, Whoever wills me ill shall die to-night! With which ominous sentiment I will leave the _ciuri_, and pass on to the yet more interesting _canzuni_: little poems, usually in eight lines, of which there are so many thousand graceful specimens that it is embarrassing to have to make a selection. Despite the wide gulf which separates lettered from illiterate poetry, it is curious to note the not unfrequent coincidence between the thought of the ignorant peasant bard and that of cultured poets. In particular, we are now and then reminded of the pretty conceits of Herrick, and also of the blithe paganism, the happy unconsciousness that "Pan is dead," which lay in the nature of that most incongruous of country parsons. Thus we find a parallel to "Gather ye Rosebuds:"