XVI
THE ECHO OF LIFE’S UNSUNG SONGS
WE are familiar with the echo of life’s unfinished songs. The unfinished songs of confidence, sung by the martyrs as they stood upon the yellow sands of the Coliseum, looking upward beyond the soft blue of the Italian sky to heights hitherto unseen, have never ceased to vibrate through the centuries. The unfinished songs of sacrifice and patriotism which were sung by our soldiers and sailors who perished in the world-wide war are still echoing in the music of every wave that laves the shores of every sea. We are all familiar with the lingering music of life’s unfinished songs, but it is well for us to consider also the echo of the songs that have never found expression in word or tune.
Each soul is a minstrel whether he wills it or no, for God has fashioned a harp for every heart. There is a tradition that above the head of David’s couch there hung his favorite harp. The mountain winds coming through the midnight silence would stir its strings, awaken the sleeping lover of song, and bid him weave words of love to fit the wind-wrought music. Thus were the Psalms created. To each individual God has intrusted a priceless harp, tight drawn with silver chords of love, and sensitive to every touch of passing wind and falling sunbeam. So delicate are these heart-strings that every event of life awakens the dormant music and fills the soul with harmonies divine. Behold how sensitive they are.
The day has been dull and gloomy and you have not cared to go abroad. After a while you become reminiscent. As though led by an unseen hand you enter a quiet, unused room and lift the lid of a quaint, old-fashioned chest. You know not why your followed impulses led you there, but you are glad that you obeyed the leading, for there, resting quietly amid fragrant lavender, is a treasured gift that came from a mother’s hand. It has been lying there for many years, untouched and unseen, but how beautiful its faded colors, how lovely its wrinkled folds placed there by the hands so long since turned to dust! and how, out of the dim mists of the past, it brings the soft colors and clear outlines of a dear, sweet face! There are tears in your eyes, but more and better than that, there is music in your soul. Every string of your heart is vibrant with melody.
One morning you were ill and did not care to go to the office. You were indisposed just enough to enjoy the rich luxury of being waited upon, when, suddenly and unexpectedly, your eyes rested upon an old-fashioned picture that strangely and wondrously stirred your heart. For years it had been hanging there with its treasured memories, but you had been too busy to notice it. How charming its exquisite beauty as it greeted you from out its odd, old-styled frame. Its colors, mellowed with the passing years, carried you back triumphantly to the sun-bright days of the long ago, and the soul was stirred with music that charmed, and soothed, and inspired.
The harp-strings of the heart are very sensitive. A finger-print or tear-stain upon the leaves of the old family Bible, the frail petals of a faded blossom, the sight of a tiny yellow garment or baby shoe, a package of letters tied with ribbon, or a scrap of paper scrawled by unskilled childish fingers, just little things that no one else admires or notices, is all that is required to start the music ringing in our hearts.
To this music the soul always responds with a song. This is true even when one’s musical education has been neglected. The ear may not be able to distinguish one note from another, or discern the difference between “Old Hundred” and “The Star-Spangled Banner”; the individual may know nothing about harmony, time, or measure, when listening to the music that others have given to the world, but his own soul can always sing its own melodies. There is no note so high in the scale that the soul cannot reach it. I have heard the English lark lift its silver notes until they melted into sunshine and fell in great billows of joy upon the listening earth. Every soul can sing like that. As above the couch of David hung the harp awaiting the touch of the passing winds, so each heart is a stringed harp awaiting the touch of some common event to awaken music and set the soul to singing its minstrelsies.
However beautiful these songs, they never pass the threshold of the lips. Their sweetness surpasses the power of expression. That must have been the reason why Mendelssohn wept so bitterly at times. With all his marvelous power in weaving tones he could not give expression to the rapturous melodies which were surging through his soul. This also explains why Michael Angelo so often gave way to the dreariest despondency. Though he try never so hard, he could not express upon canvas or in marble form the heavenly symphonies that were thrilling his soul. The reason that Lord Tennyson stood for such long periods upon the cliffs, overlooking the sea, not hearing the call of an approaching friend, was that his soul was searching through earth and sea and sky, for words with which to express the songs his soul was ever singing.
The deepest and most valuable emotions of life are always inexpressible. How useless is human speech in the presence of the deep feelings of awe and reverence! I stood with a friend upon one of the great heights of the Catskills. He was a genial man, and the day had been filled with merriment. Rounding a curve, we came suddenly to the edge of a great cliff overlooking the Hudson valley. At our feet were many miles of forest trees mantling the hills and valleys with the brilliant coloring of Autumn foliage. We could count a score of villages nestled peacefully among the meadows and fields of ripened grain. The Hudson River rolled its silver length in the distance, while, far, far beyond us, draped in blue, we saw the hills and mountains of another State. Beholding what, in many respects, was the most soul-entrancing revelation of nature’s glory I had ever witnessed, neither of us spoke. The moments slipped by with slippered feet and the mid-afternoon became evening, before either of us broke the silence. It is sacrilegious for one to undertake to express the holy sentiments of awe and reverence in the clumsy garb of human speech. This is true of all deep feeling. Standing in the presence of a bereaved friend, shallow souls can chatter idle phrases, but deep, healing, tender sympathy is expressed in the silence of a handclasp and unspoken word. Looking into the deep, expressive eyes of one whom we love, our lips are silent and only the tear-filled eye tells of the song the soul is singing. Have you ever been able to tell your mother how much you loved her? The real songs of the soul are of necessity the unsung songs.
These songs are the real songs, for the soul life is the real life. They may never be heard by others, but you hear them, and their words never die. They echo through the years. There is never a moment of thoughtful meditation, never a season of seclusion; never a period of sickness when the things of the world are shut out and one is left alone with the things of the soul; never a season of disappointment, or sorrow, or bereavement, or heartache, but that the hour is made blessed and hallowed with the memory of these songs, and lo, while one listens, all earth and heaven become vibrant with music and one is charmed and soothed with the echo of life’s unsung songs. While exiled upon the lonely heights of Patmos John heard a song that thrilled the heaven of heavens, but none save the multitude before the throne could learn the song. That is easily understood. It was not a song blending the varied experiences of earth together into one mighty outburst of love; it was the soul weaving all the unsung songs which no one on earth had ever heard or could ever understand into one great symphony with which to praise the God of its salvation. Life’s unsung songs shall never cease to live in earth and heaven. Their echoes are our comfort here, our joy forever.