His account of the former gives a genuine impression of dreariness and monotony, for the villa is stuck on a mountain edge, where the summer is scorching and the winter bleak, where a "lean cypress" is the most conspicuous object in the foreground, and hills "smoked over" with "faint grey olive trees" fill in the back; where on hot days the silence is only broken by the shrill chirp of the cicala, and the whining of bees around some adjacent firs.
"A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.)"
Mrs. Sutherland Orr
Soon after her capture she became the property of Viscomte cicala, who finally made her his wife.
"The Story of Malta"
Maturin M. Ballou
The sound of the river and of the cicala is all the noise we hear.
"The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2)"
Frederic G. Kenyon