Hear Andrew Lang:

Ah! Leave the smoke, the wealth, the roar

Of London and the bustling street,

For still by the Sicilian shore

The murmur of the Muse is sweet,


And shepherds still their songs repeat

Where breaks the blue Sicilian Sea.

How England has loved lands of sun! There was a young English clergyman, by name Lefroy, who in the Eighties went to Sicily and wrote some memorable verses there. I can recall the first line of one: