Show CRADLE SONGS ARE ANCIENT words often seem meaningless jumble melody always within compass of home voices almost aanos t all popular cra cradle dle songs tire ore very bid some of them bliem so old that were they not fai familiar nillar they might be considered the verlest curiosities fc of literature through all tile the changes cliant es of language they have held their own upon the lips and in the hearts of the people from mouth to mouth they have come down through tile the years scars with an irresistible swing of rhythm and patter and jingle of words till they seem to have been rather a natural growth than n human invention in all the melodies observes n writer there Is a certain likeness of rhythm with a national I 1 might say a temperamental difference of movement and a meter from the slow assured major of the german to the wild plaintive minor of the scotch characterized by the short accented notes or the weirdness of the hungarian with its sudden changes that these old songs should have embodied and retained the characteristics of the people among whom they originated gives them nn an importance which their crude words and the elementary character of their melodies scarcely seem to warrant the words often seem a mere inere menn meaningless ingless jumble the melody Is always within the pasy compass of home voices no doubt both express in ili some wise way the one unalterable sentiment of maternal love |