THE SOUL OF SONG. 71 



beauty ; and so she gives man a capacity for the appreciation of havr 

 monious vibrations ; and speech dies out — as if in shame at its own 

 weakness — where the expression of the soul begins. Simple in its 

 source, — simple in its history, is this fact ; yet how deep it lies in the 

 unity of this circle of the affections, — how closely bound up with the 

 hopes and joys of living men, — how suggestive of spiritual life and 

 high aspiration, — how strong a link in the chain of our destinies. The 

 most ethereal, and at the same time the most vague musical expres- 

 sions, stand as high above verse, as verse — the connecting link between 

 conversation and melody — does above mere prosy talking. We 

 remember the air of an old song long after we have forgotten the words. 

 We may sit unmoved during the recital of tlie finest verses ; but the 

 moment the harper's fingers sweep the strings, the melody rouses us 

 to a fine fanaticism. The song was body before, — it is soul now ; 

 its harmonies are complete ; and to every march of the melody the 

 heart-strings throb responsive. Natxure is double all through ; — body 

 and soul, matter and spirit, as if the imiverse were a repeated 

 marriage of the two elements. To the fertility of the fields is added 

 beauty of tint, and form, and colour : the brown soil has a soul, and 

 that soul is the flower, which would exist in vain were there no other 

 souls to make common cause with its life and history. To man — the 

 prose of the world — is added woman, its poetry. 



These many spirits of the world seem made for man. The rainbow 

 may span the heavens ; but unless seen by man, its arches have been 

 built in vain. When it bridges over the unpopulated desert, it is but 

 a thousand drops of rain, which the green leaves drink in without 

 knowing of their prismatic beauty; but when it embraces the corn 

 ridge and the village, a thousand loving eyes look up, and angels are 

 seen treading it as a pathway between the heaven and the earth. 

 Hence, knowing its mission, the rainbow only visits spots where 

 human souls abide. It is for the soul of man that all these many 

 souls are born, and the soul of song as truly so as any. Where is the 

 music of nature so rich as on the skirts of cultivated disti'icts, where 

 flowery gardens feed innumerable humming bees, and thick bosses of 

 thatch shelter the trusting robin ! It is a fact, that in the deep forest 

 the birds that sing are few ; and the more lonely the spot, the more 

 hoarse and dissonant the voices of the creatures. Everywhere the 

 dear birds hover and flit on hasty wing ; but only near the dwelling 

 of man hover those whose song is sweetest : in his garden they take 



