Danse Macabre

Rise up and come danse with me he said

Danse you will to my “merry” tune

As midnight turns on this all hallows night

You will danse until this dark becomes dawns first light.

Danse my dead, my fiddle is tuned

Listen well to this my command

As hand by hand you take hold a circle to complete

Then faster, faster side step you will leap, leap, leap.

In the pale, pale moon and icy wind

Chalk white bones did whirl

The sound striking – bone on bone

Heard louder and louder above the fiddles drone.

They moved in time never missing a beat

Until the cockerel crowed

A summons back to deaths long sleep

Until next year – lovers parting kiss and weep.

The dead may sleep but deaths work goes on

Drawing more danser’s near

Is this too where we will one day awake?

To his fiddle and danse macabre – or is this just a superstitious fear?

By Natasha
© 2007 Natasha Forder

This poem is based on one of my favourite pieces of classical music; Danse Macabre by Saint-Saëns, which takes the poem of the same name by Henri Cazalis as its setting.  I wrote this poem for a Halloween theme night that Basingstoke Writers Circle hosted.