May.

But when my lap was full of flowers I spied
Roses at last, roses of every hue;
Therefore I ran to pluck their ruddy pride,
Because their perfume was so sweet and true
That all my soul went forth with pleasure new,
With yearning and desire too soft to say.

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

I gazed and gazed. Hard task it were to tell
How lovely were the roses in that hour:
One was but peeping from her verdant shell,
And some were faded, some were scarce in flower:
Then Love said: Go, pluck from the blooming bower
Those that thou seest ripe upon the spray.

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

For when the full rose quits her tender sheath,
When she is sweetest and most fair to see,
Then is the time to place her in thy wreath,
Before her beauty and her freshness flee.
Gather ye therefore roses with great glee,
Sweet girls, or ere their perfume pass away.

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

The next Ballata is less simple, but is composed with the same
intention. It may here be parenthetically mentioned that the courtly
poet, when he applied himself to this species of composition, invented
a certain rusticity of incident, scarcely in keeping with the spirit
of his art. It was in fact a conventional feature of this species of
verse that the scene should be laid in the country, where the burgher,
on a visit to his villa, is supposed to meet with a rustic beauty who
captivates his eyes and heart. Guido Cavalcanti, in his celebrated
Ballata, 'In un boschetto trovai pastorella,' struck the keynote of
this music, which, it may be reasonably conjectured, was imported into
Italy through Provencal literature from the pastorals of Northern
France. The lady so quaintly imaged by a bird in the following Ballata
of Poliziano is supposed to have been Monna Ippolita Leoncina of
Prato, white-throated, golden-haired, and dressed in crimson silk.

I found myself one day all, all alone,
For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn.

I do not think the world a field could show
With herbs of perfume so surpassing rare;
But when I passed beyond the green hedge-row,
A thousand flowers around me flourished fair,
White, pied and crimson, in the summer air;
Among the which I heard a sweet bird's to