The Singers Poem by Alexander Anderson

God said, 'I will reach my hand down to earth,
That man may have in him a purer birth;


For the melody hidden within his breast,
For want of a singer, is dead to the rest.


But he whom I touch shall at once have power
To open his lips with a singing dower;


And, spreading his melody far and free,
Men shall turn and listen and think of me.'


Then He reach'd His hand to the earth, and lo!
Like woodland buds when the spring winds blow;


So the hearts He touch'd rose up and grew strong
With an unseen strength, which took shape in song!


They sung in the city, where the long street
Was one great echo of human feet;


They sung in lanes where the shadows lay still;
They sung in glen and on breezy hill;


And the hearts of the angels were strangely stirr'd,
When the melodies of the earth were heard.


For within them there ran a sweet undertone
Of the music that God set apart as their own.


Then they question'd their Master, and said, 'We hear
Stray notes of our melody floating near;


But far above them swell other sounds,
That burst their own and celestial bounds.


Why is it that one with the same full breast
Can sing till his song overshadows the rest?'


Then God said, 'He of the lowly band
Who sings, I have touch'd him with my hand;


But he whose song to thine own is wed
Sings with my hand laid upon his head.'