But there is one song which we shall not hear yet, as we return home from the wood; of which, nevertheless, some words must be said. Yet what words have even the greatest word-masters yet found for the Nightingale’s unearthly melody! What other song has even a likeness of the instantaneous and riveting fascination that is produced by one note of this? It is music which speaks, not to what we call the heart, merely, or the intellect, merely, but straight at once to that mysterious divine thing within us, which we call the spirit.
And so it represents that recognition of, and yearning for, an ideal perfection and beauty, which many own, but few can express. And thus we start to hear it represented and embodied in sound without language, and, without knowing how, acknowledge a dumb music in ourselves which is closely akin to this superhuman and unearthly song. And we cannot, if we try, exactly define its character; some call it joyous; more sorrowful. But perhaps there is a hint in it of something within us higher and deeper than either of these; else how can it thus startle and electrify our being? At least it tells us of melody that we cannot yet grasp or fully understand, of beauty and harmony and perfection that is not yet our own. And I liken it to the raptured speakings of the prophet, or to an echo of the angelic messages seldom brought to earth.
Well, ’tis difficult, and perhaps hopeless, to strive to interpret the songs of these little minstrels of God. After all, each heart will set them to words of its own. And, by leading others to do so, perhaps my musings may best fulfil their end. Many a one who would have appreciated them, misses the pictures in earth’s great gallery, and the music of earth’s great concert, for want of a finger to point him once to the one, and a hand on his shoulder to arrest his attention for the other. And it is worth regarding pictures at which God is working, and to listen to songs which yet remain in a saddened world, exactly as He first taught them.
THE MAY-DAYS OF THE SOUL.
