Return to BalladsElle Pleurera Dans Son Cercueil (She Will Weep Inside Her Coffin) My great aunt Callie was quiet little girl. She lived within the walls of her own silent world; born without hearing her own feeble cries; born without the light of vision in her eyes. She lived in a big house that was very old, built by a Frenchman with stolen pirate gold. She would sleep by her window in the warm sunlight, and walk around the garden in the dead of night. One autumn night they heard her sing a strange song; her new voice was lovely, but the words were all wrong. What was the language; no one could tell. She sang, “Elle pleurera dans son cercueil“. Just two days later, sweet Callie was taken ill; she was laid in her bedroom quiet and still. Those country folks buried her in the garden that day, in a simple wooden coffin, under red Georgia clay. But, her daddy couldn‘t sleep knowing Callie was dead, and the only words she spoke kept singing through his head. So, with a pen and paper, he wrote the strange words down, and he took them to a teacher on the other side of town. “French!” said the teacher, “and the meaning is clear. ‘She will weep inside her coffin’ is the phrase written here.” The grieving father wasted no time returning home. He dug until he saw that wooden coffin dome. Fearing he would find what his heart already knew; he placed the box gently on the new October dew. When the top was opened you could hear his angry cries. There were scratches in the coffin and tears in Callie’s eyes. In the darkness of her grave, she had awakened from her dream. No one could hear her crying; no one could hear her scream. Little Callie was softly weeping when she took her final breath, and floated into the welcoming, open arms of death. And even to this day, in the garden planted there, a haunting song floats through the chilled October air; “She will weep inside her coffin!”, a Frenchman’s voice rings. “Elle pleurera dans son cercueil!”, the ghost of Callie sings. Shirley Alexander © 2007 ~~~~~o~~~~~
