It will be seen that, in this ballad, which is locally called "Lou Jour des Mouerts," the officiating priest assumes red vestments in the morning, and changes them in the course of the day for black. The vestments appropriate to the evening of All Saints' Day are still black (it being the Vigil of All Souls'), but in the morning the colour worn is white or gold. An explanation, however, is at hand. The feast of All Saints had its beginning in the dedication of the Roman Pantheon by Boniface IV., in the year 607, to _S. Maria ad Martyres_, and red ornaments were naturally chosen for a day set apart especially to the commemoration of martyrdom. These were only discarded when the feast came to have a more general character, and there is evidence of their retention here and there in French churches till a date as advanced as the fifteenth century. Thus, we gain incidentally some notion of the age of the song. Not long after giving a first reading to the Provencal ballad of the Shroud-theft, I became convinced of its substantial identity with a poem whose author holds quite another rank to that of the nameless folk-poet. Goethe's "Todten Tanz" tends less to edification than "Lou jour des Mouerts;" nor has it, I venture to think, an equal power. We miss the pathetic picture of the companies of sad ghosts; these kneeling before the wayside crosses; these lingering by their children's thresholds; these listening to the prayers of the pious on their behalf; these others weeping, _en vesent que n'ant plus d'amics_. But the divergence of treatment cannot hide the fact that the two ballads are made out of one tale. THE DANCE OF DEATH. The watcher looks down in the dead of the night On graves in trim order gleaming; The moon steeps the world all around in her light-- 'Tis clear as if noon were beaming. One grave gaped apart, then another began; Here forth steps a woman, and there steps a man, White winding-sheets trailing behind them. On sport they determine, nor pause they for long, All feel for the measure advancing; The rich and the poor, the old and the young; But winding-sheets hinder the dancing. Since sense of decorum no longer impedes, They hasten to shake themselves free of their weeds, And tombstones are quickly beshrouded. Then legs kick about and are lifted in air, Strange gesture and antic repeating; The bones crack and rattle, and crash here and there, As if to keep time they were beating. The sight fills the watcher with mirth 'stead of fear, And the sly one, the Tempter, speaks low in his ear: "Now go and a winding-sheet plunder!" The hint he soon followed, the deed it was done, Then behind the church-door he sought shelter; The moon in her splendour unceasingly shone, And still dance the dead helter-skelter. At last, one by one, they all cease from the play, And, wrapt in the winding-sheets, hasten away, Beneath the turf silently sinking.