Hell's a-burning, burning, burning.
Cackling in his impish play,
Here and there the Devil's turning,Forward here and back again,
Zig-zag as the lightning's ray,
While the fires burn amain.In the church and in the cell
In the caves, in open day,
Ever prowls the fiend of hell.
Hell's a-burning, burning, burning.
Cackling in his impish play,
Here and there the Devil's turning,Forward here and back again,
Zig-zag as the lightning's ray,
While the fires burn amain.In the church and in the cell
In the caves, in open day,
Ever prowls the fiend of hell.
But in the original the first and last lines of the first verse are used as refrains in the succeeding verses, recurring alternately as the last line. In the final verse they are united.—The prose translation is by Philip Hale.
[[86]] "A la villette," a popular song of the Boulevard. Mr. Philip Hale, who may have been specially inspired, associates the song with the word "crapule," "tough," as he connects the following revolutionary songs, in contrapuntal use, with the word "magister," "teacher,"—the idea of the pedagogue in music. It may be less remote to find in these popular airs merely symbols or graphic touches of the swarming groups among which the Devil plies his trade.
[[87]] The famous "Ca ira."
[[88]] In the wealth of interesting detail furnished by Mr. Hale is the following: "The Carmagnole was first danced in Paris about the liberty-tree, and there was then no bloody suggestion.... The word 'Carmagnole' is found in English and Scottish literature as a nickname for a soldier in the French Revolutionary army, and the term was applied by Burns to the Devil as the author of ruin, 'that curst carmagnole, auld Satan.'"
[[89]] The religious phrases are naturally related to the "priest or sceptic." In the rapid, skipping rhythm, Mr. Hale finds the tarentella suggested by the "friend of the tarantula."