yme 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.

Here is a serenade of a more impassioned character (p. 99):--

I come to visit thee, my beauteous queen,
Thee and the house where thou art harboured:
All the long way upon my knees, my queen,
I kiss the earth where'er thy footsteps tread.
I kiss the earth, and gaze upon the wall,
Whereby thou goest, maid imperial!
I kiss the earth, and gaze upon the house,
Whereby thou farest, queen most beauteous!

In the next the lover, who has passed the whole night beneath his
sweetheart's window, takes leave at the break of day. The feeling of
the half-hour before dawn, when the sound of bells rises to meet the
growing light, and both form a prelude to the glare and noise of day,
is expressed with much unconscious poetry (p. 105):--

I see the dawn e'en now begin to peer:
Therefore I take my leave, and cease to sing,
See how the windows open far and near,
And hear the bells of morning, how they ring!
Through heaven and earth the sounds of ringing swell;
Therefore, bright jasmine flower, sweet maid, farewell!
Through heaven and Rome the sound of ringing goes;
Farewell, bright jasmine flower, sweet maiden rose!
The next is more quaint (p. 99):--

I come by night, I come, my soul aflame;
I come in this fair hour of your sweet sleep;
And should I wake you up, it were a shame.
I cannot sleep, and lo! I break your sleep.
To wake you were a shame from your deep rest;
Love never sleeps, nor they whom Love hath blest.

A very great many rispetti are simple panegyrics of the beloved, to
find similitude for whose beauty heaven and earth are ransacked. The
compliment of the first line in the following song is perfect (p.
23):--

Beauty was born with you, fair maid:
The sun and moon inclined to you;
On you the snow her whiteness laid
The rose her rich and radiant hue:
Saint Magdalen her hair unbound,
And Cupid taught you how to wound--
How to wound hearts Dan Cupid taught:
Your beauty drives me love-distraught.

The