THE UNIQUIET GRAVE

The ballad date back 1400 and was collected in 1868 by Francis James Child, it is Child Ballad number 78.

In my opinion the title refers to a ghost or something supernatural that can't rest in his grave because someone disturbs it.

The ballad starts with a narration: the narrator is a man mourning for his lover's death who was slain in the green wood. The ballad continues with a dialogue. In the dialogue the ghost asks  her lover why he finds himself on her grave. The lover answers he wants a kiss from her and only if he receives it he will leave her grave.

The narrator describes the woman: she is dead, cold and her breath smells earthy strong.

Looking the visual layout the reader can notice that the ballad is so long. It has nine stanza. Moreover, some stanzas have got lines longer than the other.

We immediately understand that the ballad tells about a young man who lost his true love. The man promise to himself that he would sit on the grave of his love for a year and one day. After this period, the ghost of his love appears and asks him why he disturbs her. He answers that he wants a kiss from her lips.

There are a lot of anaphora inside the ballad and some enumerations. These things permit to simplify the memorization of the poem like all the figures of sound inside ballads. This ballad was accompanied by music like a lot of other poems.

The first stanzas describe the setting of the ballad and the weather: it rains and a wind blows. In all stanzas the second and the fourth verse are in rhyme. The rhymes of the poem are: Rain – Slain, May – Day, Speak – Sleep, Creve – Grave, Strong – Long, Stone – Known, Walk – Stalk, Return – Mourn, Again – Again.

It is very important the change of verb tense from the first to the second stanzas.

In the second stanza the man promises to stay on her grave and go on mourning her death. There is also an alliteration in the 6th line "As any young man may" that speed up the reading.

In the sixth stanza there is a metaphor. The main characters speak about life. They say life is a flower, it is spring that becomes summer, autumn and last but not least, winter, the season of death. The ballad ends with the man's questions. Here the narrator expresses his feelings. The ghost answers that they will meet again when the oakleaves falling from trees are green and spring up again.

The text is an ancient one since it was composed in the Middle Ages. The text like all ballads was handed down orally therefore it resorts to plenty sound devices and figures of speech. As matter of fact the conventions help memorization.

As all ballads the text speaks about a tragic love story and the supernatural. The story is one of two guys. The man suffers from his love’s death because he misses his sweetheart. The ballad also offers the reader information about the mentality of people in the Middle Ages.