ese forms, native to the people but assimilated by the learned
classes, were the Miracle Play or 'Sacra Rappresentazione;' the
'Ballata' or lyric to be sung while dancing; the 'Canto
Carnascialesco' or Carnival Chorus; the 'Rispetto' or short
love-ditty; the 'Lauda' or hymn; the 'Maggio' or May-song; and the
'Madrigale' or little part-song.

At Florence, where even under the despotism of the Medici a show of
republican life still lingered, all classes joined in the amusements
of carnival and spring time; and this poetry of the dance, the
pageant, and the villa flourished side by side with the more serious
efforts of the humanistic muse. It is not my purpose in this place to
inquire into the origins of each lyrical type, to discuss the
alterations they may have undergone at the hands of educated
versifiers, or to define their several characteristics; but only to
offer translations of such as seem to me best suited to represent the
genius of the people and the age.

In the composition of the poetry in question, Angelo Poliziano was
indubitably the most successful. This giant of learning, who filled
the lecture-rooms of Florence with students of all nations, and whose
critical and rhetorical labours marked an epoch in the history of
scholarship, was by temperament a poet, and a poet of the people.
Nothing was easier for him than to throw aside his professor's mantle,
and to improvise 'Ballate' for the girls to sing as they danced their
'Carola' upon the Piazza di Santa Trinita in summer evenings. The
peculiarity of this lyric is that it starts with a couplet, which also
serves as refrain, supplying the rhyme to each successive stanza. The
stanza itself is identical with our rime royal, if we count the
couplet in the place of the seventh line. The form is in itself so
graceful and is so beautifully treated by Poliziano that I cannot
content myself with fewer than four of his _Ballate_.[30] The first is
written on the world-old theme of 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.'

I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day,
In a green garden in mid month of May.

Violets and lilies grew on every side
Mid the green grass, and young flowers wonderful,
Golden and white and red and azure-eyed;
Toward which I stretched my hands, eager to pull
Plenty to make my fair curls beautiful,
To crown my rippling curls with garlands gay.

I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day,
In a green garden in mid month of