This composition, belonging as it does to the ultra-realistic French school of the present day, is a vivid tone picture of the same “Danse Macabre.” At the head of the original composition, serving as motto and undoubtedly as direct inspiration for the music, stands a curious ancient French poem in well-nigh obsolete fourteenth century idiom. I have made a free translation of these verses into English, as follows:
On a sounding stone,
With a blanched thigh-bone,
The bone of a saint, I fear,
Death strikes the hour
Of his wizard power,
And the specters haste to appear.
From their tombs they rise
In sepulchral guise,
Obeying the summons dread,