ng is the due
That prevents this penitence.

Sorrow, tears, and penitence
Are our doom of pain for aye:
This dead concourse riding by
Hath no cry but Penitence!

One song for dancing, composed less upon the type of the Ballata than
on that of the Carnival Song, may here be introduced, not only in
illustration of the varied forms assumed by this style of poetry, but
also because it is highly characteristic of Tuscan town-life. This
poem in the vulgar style has been ascribed to Lorenzo de' Medici, but
probably without due reason. It describes the manners and customs of
female street gossips.

Since you beg with such a grace,
How can I refuse a song,
Wholesome, honest, void of wrong,
On the follies of the place?

Courteously on you I call;
Listen well to what I sing:
For my roundelay to all
May perchance instruction bring,
And of life good lessoning.--
When in company you meet,
Or sit spinning, all the street
Clamours like a market-place.

Thirty of you there may be;
Twenty-nine are sure to buzz,
And the single silent she
Racks her brains about her coz:--
Mrs. Buzz and Mrs. Huzz,
Mind your work, my ditty saith;
Do not gossip till your breath
Fails and leaves you black of face!

Governments go out and in:--
You the truth must needs discover.
Is a girl about to win
A brave husband in her lover?--
Straight you set to talk him over:
'Is he wealthy?' 'Does his coat
Fit?' 'And has he got a vote?'
'Who's his father?' 'What's his race?'

Out of window one head pokes;
Twenty others do the same:--
Chatter, clatter!--creaks and croaks
All the year the same old game!--
'See my spinning!' cries one dame,
'Five long ells of cloth, I trow!'
Cries another, 'Mine must go,
Drat it, to the bleaching base!'

'Devil take the fowl!' says one:
'Mine are all bewitched, I guess;
Cocks and hens with vermin run,
Mangy, filthy, featherless.'
Says another: 'I confess
Every hair I drop, I keep--
Plague upon it, in a heap
Falling off to my disgrace!'

If you see a fellow walk
Up or down the street and back,
How you nod and wink and talk,
Hurry-skurry, cluck and clack!--
'What, I wonder, does he lack
Here about?'--'There's something wrong!'