On Song
The last anonymous piece of silver that was struck in the mint of the Roman language has that same poignant quality.
Exul quid vis canere?
All the songs that men make (and they are powerful ones) regretting youth are songs of exile, and in a sense (it is a high and true sense) the mighty hymns are songs of exile also.
Qui vitam sine termino
Nobis donet in patria,
that is the pure note of exile, and so is the
Coheredes et sodales
In terra viventium,
and in this last glorious thing comes in the note of marching and of soldiers as well as the note of separation and of longing. But after all the mention of religion is in itself a proof of song, for what spell could there ever be without incantation, or what ritual could lack its chaunt?
If any man wonders why these two, Religion and Song, are connected, or thinks it impious that they should so be, let him do this: if he is an old man let him cover his face with his hand and remember at evening what occasions stand out of the long past, full of a complete life, and of an acute observation and intelligence of all that was around: how many were occasions for song! There are pictures a man will remember all his life only because he watched
5
