It was, indeed, an Easter, or, if you will, a Whitsuntide, of Roses. They were everywhere; clambering up the house, drooping from the roof, running along the walls, carpeting the ground, festooning themselves from elm to elm, interlaced with the cypresses, peering through porch and casement, covering stable and concealing shed, scaling the tallest and seemingly most inaccessible places, and thence falling down in untrained profusion, veritable cascades of colour. We talked of them from morning to night; we lived, moved, and had our being among them, left them only to go back to them, vowed these were the most beautiful,—no, those,—no, those others, and perpetually expressed ourselves in fickle and contradictory adoration. As Lamia wandered among them, she would break into song, chanting their praises, now in one tongue, now in another.
‘Roses crimson, roses white,
Deadly pale or lovely blushing,
Both in love with May at sight,
And their maiden blood is rushing
To and fro in hope to hide
Tumult it but thus discloses.
Bring the Bridegroom to the Bride!
Everywhere are roses, roses.’
Then she would remember snatches of Lorenzo’s Canzone a Ballo, ‘Ben venga Maggio,’ written in the local dialect of the time, and improvise for them a suitable strain.