Afar in the sky,
With flames leaping high,
The Turks with swords rude
Have slaughtered your brood.
May-beetle, fly!
May-beetle, fly!
The first comic opera, a pastourale six hundred years old, Le Jeu de Robin et de Marion by Adam de la Hale, is full of May songs.
The King and Queen of the May and May Pole dancers and the English Jack-in-the-Green, the Thuringian Little Leaf Man and the Russian tree dressed up are only a few of the many examples of the rites of spring. And we have seen how the Druids and the Aztecs celebrated spring.
One of the most modern composers, Igor Stravinsky, has written a ballet called Le Sacre du Printemps (Rites of Spring) in which he has used the ancient Russian pagan rites of celebrating the spring. The music is wild and the rhythms primitive.