Hark!—The hum of mighty hosts! It rose and fell, fainter and more faint;
then the murmur of water was heard and lost again, as it swelled and
gathered and burst in one grand volume of sound like a hallelujah from
myriad lips. Out of the resounding echo, out of the dying cadence a
single female voice arose. Clear, pure, rich, it soared above the tumult
of the host that hushed itself, a living thing. Higher, sweeter, it
seemed to break the fetters of mortality and tremble in sublime
adoration before the Infinite. My breath stilled with awe. Was it a
spirit-voice—one of the glittering host in the jasper city “that had no
need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it?” And the water, was
it the river clear as crystal flowing from the great white throne? But
no! The tone now floated out soft, sad, human. There was no sorrowful
strain in that nightless land where the leaves of the trees were for the
healing of the nations. The beautiful voice was of the earth and
sin-stricken. From the sobbing that mingled with the faint ripple of
water it went up once more, ringing gladly, joyfully; it went up
inspired with praise to the sky, and—hark! the Hebrew tongue:—
“The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.”
Then the noise of the multitude swelled again, and a crash of music
broke forth from innumerable timbrels. I raised my head quickly—it was
the song of Miriam after the passage of the Red Sea.