Now loathsome worms (ah! piteous sight!) do pass.
Priest, let it be your care, and promise me,
That evermore her lamp shall lighted be.
The song beats with the pulses of the people's life—the life of a people swift in gesture, in action, in living, in dying: always in a hurry, as if one must be quick for the catastrophe is coming. They are all here: the lover waiting in the street for some sign or word; the girl leaning out of window to tell her piece of news; the "poor child" who had drunk of the lava stream of love; the dead lying uncoffined in the church to be gazed upon by who will; the priest to whom are given those final instructions: pious, and yet how uncomforting, how unilluminated by hope or even aspiration! Here there is no thought of reunion. A kind-hearted German woman once tried to console a young Neapolitan whose lover was dead, by saying that they might meet in Paradise. "In Paradise?" she answered, opening her large black eyes; "Ah! signora, in Paradise people do not marry."
The coming back or reappearance of a lover, in whose absence his beloved has died, is a subject that has been made use of by the folk-poets of every country, and nothing can be more characteristic of the nationalities to which they belong than the divergences which mark their treatment of it. Northern singers turn the narrative of the event into half a fairy tale. On the banks of the Moldau we are introduced to a joyous youth, returning with glad steps to his native village. "My pretty girls, my doves, is my friend cutting oats with you?" he asks of a group of girls working in the fields near his home. "Only yesterday," they reply, "his friend was buried." He begs them to tell him by which path they bore her away. It is a road edged with rosemary; everybody knows it—it leads to the new cemetery. Thither he goes, thrice he wanders round the place, the third time he hears a voice crying, "Who is it treads on my grave and breaks the rest of the dead?" "It is I, thy friend," he says, and he bids her rise up and look on him. She says she cannot, she is too weak, her heart is lifeless, her hands and feet are like stones. But the gravedigger has left his spade hard by; with it her friend can shovel away the earth that holds her down. He does what she tells him; when the earth is lifted he beholds her stretched out at full length, a frozen maiden crowned with rosemary. He asks to whom has she bequeathed his gifts. She answers that her mother has them; he must go and beg them of her. Then shall he throw the little scarf upon a bush, and there will be an end to his love. And the silver ring he shall cast into the sea, and there will be an end to his grief. On the shores of the Wener it is Lord Malmstein who wakes before dawn from a dream that his beloved's heart is breaking. "Up, up, my little page, saddle the grey; I must know how it fares with my love." He mounts the horse and gallops into the forests. Of a sudden two little maids stand in his path; one wears a dress of blue, and hails him with the words: "God keep you, Lord Malmstein; what bale awaits you!" The other is dight in red, and of her Lord Malmstein asks, "Who is ill, and who is dead?" "No one is ill, no one is dead, save only the betrothed of Malmstein." He makes haste to reach the village; on the way he meets the bier of his betrothed. Swiftly he leaps from the saddle; he pulls from off his finger rings of fine gold, and throws them to the gravedigger—"Delve a grave deep and wide, for therein we will walk together." His face turns red and white, and he deals a mortal blow at his heart. This Swedish Malmstein not only figures as the reappearing lover; he is also one of that familiar pair whom death unites. In an ancient Romansch ballad the story is simply an episode of peasant life. A young Engadiner girl is forced by her father to marry a man of the village of Surselva, but all the while her troth is plighted to a youth from the village of Schams. On the road to Surselva the lover joins the bride and bridegroom unknown to the latter. When they reach the place the people declare that they have never seen so fair a woman as the youthful bride. Her husband's father and mother greet her saying, "Daughter, be thou welcome to our house!" But she answers, "No, I have never been your daughter, nor do I hope ever to be; for the time is near when I must die." Then her brothers and sisters greet her saying, "O sister, be thou welcome to our house!" "No," she says, "I have never been your sister, nor do I ever hope to be; for the time comes when I must die. Only one kindness I ask of you, give me a room where I may rest." They lead her to her chamber, they try to comfort her with sweet words; but the more they would befriend her, the more does the young bride turn her mind away from this world. Her lover is by her side, and to him she says, "O my beloved, greet my father and my mother; tell them that perhaps they have rejoiced their hearts, but sure it is they have broken mine." She turns her face to the wall and her soul returns to God. "O my beloved," cries the lover, "as thou diest, and diest for me, for thee will I gladly die." He throws himself upon the bed, and his soul follows hers. As the clock struck two they carried her to the grave, as the clock struck three they came for him; the marriage bells rang them to their rest; the chimes of Schams answering back the chimes of Surselva. From the grave mound of the girl grew a camomile plant, from the grave mound of the youth a plant of musk; and for the great love they bore one another even the flowers twined together and embraced.
Uoi, i sül tömbel da quella bella
Craschiva sü üna flur da chiaminella;
Uoi, i sül tömbel da que bel mat
Craschiva sü üna flur nusch muschiat;