Show SONGS ARE ANCIENT words often seem meaningless jumble melody always within compass of home voices almost nil all popular cradle songs are very old some of them so old that were they not familiar they might he be considered the verlest curiosities ot of literature through all the changes of language they have hate held their own upon the lips and in the hearts of the people from mouth to mouth they have come down through the years with tin an irresistible swing of rhythm and patter and jingle of words till they seem to have been rather a natural growth than a human invention in all the melodies observes a arl writer there Is a certain likeness of rhythm with a national I 1 might say 3 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 reta retained ined the characteristics of the people among whom they originated gives them tin an importance which their crude words and the elementary character of their melodies scarcely seem to warrant the words often seem a mere meaningless jumble the melody Is always within the easy compass of home voices no doubt both express in some wise way the one unalterable sentiment of maternal love |