O Friend! this body is His lyre;

He tightens its strings,

and draws from it

the melody of Brahma.

If the strings snap and the keys slacken,

then to dust must this instrument of dust return.

. . . . None but Brahma can evoke its melodies.

-- Kabir

(Songs of Kabir,

edited by R. Tagore and E. Underhill)

And if sad the music is,

It is sad with mysteries

Of a small immortal thing

That the passing ages sing --

Simple music making mirth

Of the dying and the birth

Of the people of the earth.

-- Alice Meynell

(in The Things That Matter,

edited by Julie Neuberger)

In this music there was a feeling as of time frozen into space, and above it there quivered a never-ending and superhuman serenity, an eternal, divine laughter.

-- Hermann Hesse

(Steppenwolf,

translated by B. Creighton,

revised by J. Mileck and H. Frenz)

Drumsound rises on the air,

its throb, my heart.

A voice inside the beat says,

"I know you're tired,

but come. This is the way."

-- Rumi

(The Essential Rumi,

translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne)