The Water Song
The Water Song
The following is an excerpt from Hinds’ Feet On High Places, written by one of my favorite authoresses: Hannah Hurnard. You can read more about this beautiful Christian allegory at my Bibliotheca page.
As you read, listen to the stream trickling gently with a gay accompaniment of feathered songsters. It’s so soothing!
Just as they finished singing this song they cam to a place where a rushing stream poured itself across the path they were following and went cascading down the other side. It was running so swiftly and singing so loudly that it seemed to fill the valley around them with its laughing voice.
As the Shepherd lifted Much-Afraid across the slippery, wet stones she said to him, “I do wish I knew what it is that all running water sings.
“Sometimes in the silence of the night I lie in bed and listen to the voice of the little stream which runs past our cottage garden. It sounds so happy and so eager and as though it were repeating itself over and over again some very lovely, secret message. I think all running water seems to be singing the same song, either loud and clear or soft and low. I so wish I knew what the waters were saying. It is quite different from the voice of the sea and of salt waters, but I never can understand it. Tell me, Shepherd, do you know what all the waters sing as they hurry on their way?”
The Shepherd smiled again, and they stood silently for a few minutes by the little torrent, which seemed to shout even more loudly and exultantly, as though it knew they had paused to listen. Suddenly, as Much-Afraid stood beside the Shepherd it seemed as though her own ears and understanding were open, ad bit by bit, the water-language became clear. It is, of course, impossible to write it in water-language, but this is the best I can do to translate it. Of course, it is a very poor effort, for though a water song perhaps may be set to music, words are quite a different matter. But it went something like this:
The Water Song
Come, o come! let us away -
Lower, lower every day,
Oh, what joy it is to race
Down to find the lowest place.
This is the dearest law we know -
“It is happy to go low.”
Sweetest urge and sweetest will,
“Let us go down lower still.”
Hear the summons night and day
Calling us to some away.
From the heights we leap and flow
To the valleys down below.
Always answering to the call,
To the lowest place of all.
Sweetest urge and sweetest pain,
To go low and rise again.
“That is very puzzling,” said Much-Afraid, after she had listened for a little while and found that this was the refrain, repeated over and over again, though with a thousand variations of little trills and murmurs and bubbles and splashing sighs. “‘Let is go down lower still,’ the water seems to be singing so gladly, because it is hurrying to go down to the lowest place, and yet you are calling me to the Highest Places. What does it mean?”
“The High Places,” answered the Shepherd, “are the starting place for the journey down to the lowest place in the world. When you have hinds’ feet and can go ‘leaping on the mountains and skipping on the hills,’ you will be able, as I am, to run down from the heights in gladdest self-giving and then go up to the mountains again. You will be able to mount the High Places swifter than eagles, for it is only up on the High Places of Love that anyone can receive the power to pour themselves down in utter abandonment of self-giving.”
This saying seemed very mysterious and strange, but now that her ears had been opened to understand the water song, she heard it repeated over and over again by all the little streams which crossed their pathway or ran beside it. It seemed, too, that the wild flowers were also singing the same sort of song, only in yet another language, a color language, which, like the water tongue, could only be understood by the heart and not by the mind. They seemed to have a little chorus all their own which thousand upon thousands of them were singing in different color notes.
This is the law by which we live -
It is so sweet to give and give.
After that it seemed to Much-Afraid that all the little birds were chirping and trilling and lilting a tiny theme song also, with unnumbered variations, but still with one chorus breaking in all the time.
This is the joy of all winged life above -
Happy it is to be able to love.
“I never knew before,” said Much-Afraid suddenly, “that the Valley is such a beautiful place and so full of song.”
The Shepherd laughed and answered, “Only Love can really understand the music and beauty and the the joy which was planted in the heart of all created things. Have you forgotten that two days ago I planted the seed of Love in your heart? Already it has begun to make you hear and see things which you did not notice before.
“As Love grows in you, Much-Afraid, you will come to understand many things which you never dreamed of before. You will develop the gift of understanding many ‘unknown tongues’ and you will learn to speak Love’s own language too, but first you must learn to spell out the alphabet of Love and to develop hinds’ feet. Both these things you will learn on the journey to the High Places, and now here we are at the river, and over on the other side the foothills of the mountains begin....”
Excerpt: Taken from Hind's Feet On High Places, written by Hannah Hurnard (1979). American edition copyright held by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. © 1987
Photographs: Sequoia 31. This image is in the Public Domain.
Friday, April 18, 2008