Fondly I recall the sweet music of her heartbeat
Each soft note a delicate rose from my love's bouquet
Cavorting through my bones, cajoling my restless feet
To tap out melancholy tones on our hallowed day

My slender fingers grasp the neck, caressing gently
Feeling the touch of each solitary strand of hair
As strings vibrate beneath bow, and in that empty
Place, among those standing stones, I play a mournful air

The doleful melody stirs movement, and as the tune
Tempo rises, they too rise to heed their fiddlers call
From earths moist darkness into light of a crimson moon
They clamber gleefully to join this macabre midnight ball

My fingers blur as the dancers waltz between the stones
Faces full of mirth and laughter, how wildly they grin
Their fetid rags hang loose, stately robes that adorned thrones
Now in tatters, once buxom wenches haggard and thin

A farmer still wearing a half-eaten smock, firemen
In uniforms with dull brass buttons, an orphan lass
Clutching her headless doll; for each there was a time when
Their roles had meaning, no thought of when that time would pass

Now they are as one, each with a stone and earthy bed
The rich and the poor, through sickness and ill health
All must dance to the fiddlers tune when life has been shed
All must dance regardless of earthly power or wealth

Even I am not immune to the passing of time
And when I hear the rooster greeting first morning light
My tempo slows, and dancers leave once more to recline
Beneath stones, to await my tune on some hallowed night