In Germany, the vocero lingered long, but is dying or dead; it was an improvised farewell in “free” rhythm.[[519]] A very interesting communal survival akin to the vocero was known in Flanders down to the year 1840,—The Maids’ Dance[[520]] at the funeral of a companion; it was sung and danced by the young girls of the parish. When the coffin had been lowered into the grave, all these girls, holding by one hand the cloth which had covered the corpse, went back to the church singing this “dance” with a force and a rhythmic accent which roused the hearer’s surprise.[[521]] The two stanzas and the refrain are, of course, partly modern; but they show traces of the old dance and vocero noted below as surviving among the Corsicans:—
Up in heaven is a dance;
Alleluia.
There the maidens are dancing all.
Benedicamus Domino.
Alleluia, Alleluia.
It is for Amelia;
Alleluia,
We’re dancing as the maidens dance.
Benedicamus Domino.