Not long after giving a first reading to the Provençal ballad of the Shroud-theft, I became convinced of its substantial identity with a poem whose author holds quite another rank to that of the nameless folk-poet. Goethe's "Todten Tanz" tends less to edification than "Lou jour des Mouerts;" nor has it, I venture to think, an equal power. We miss the pathetic picture of the companies of sad ghosts; these kneeling before the wayside crosses; these lingering by their children's thresholds; these listening to the prayers of the pious on their behalf; these others weeping, en vesent que n'ant plus d'amics. But the divergence of treatment cannot hide the fact that the two ballads are made out of one tale.
The Dance of Death.
The watcher looks down in the dead of the night
On graves in trim order gleaming;
The moon steeps the world all around in her light—
'Tis clear as if noon were beaming.
One grave gaped apart, then another began;
Here forth steps a woman, and there steps a man,
White winding-sheets trailing behind them.
On sport they determine, nor pause they for long,