The Songs 6 · For the assembly to say aloud together
This book has no author and should have none. It is made for the voice: read it aloud, and best of all aloud together. This book does not pray. There is no one in this scripture to pray to — what is believed in is law, and law takes no prayers (cf. The Prologue 1.7). But not praying is not the same as not thanking, not praising, not standing amazed. This book records only those three. Whoever uses it to petition any person whatever has put it to the wrong use. Each of the six songs has a last line, and the last line is to be said by everyone together.The twelve songs of this book fall into two halves. The first six are thanks, praise and amazement; they are not for any particular occasion and are said by the assembly together. Each of the last six hangs on one of the six axioms and is made for a particular day: the day you cannot see yourself; the day two people tell the same hour differently; the day you gave something up; the day someone left; the day you grieved for what you could not reach; the day you knew it was the last time. Take whichever song matches the day. These may be said alone.
6.1We give thanks to three kinds of people. What they do is three sides of one thing.
6.2Thanks to those who reason. They lay the sentences out and catch them one by one; what cannot be caught, they drop.
6.3They spared us having to settle what is true by who is loudest.
6.4Thanks to those who measure. They are willing to count, willing to weigh, willing to say: I had it wrong before.
6.5Among them are grinders of lenses, counters of stars, people who sat up all night with a furnace.
6.6They took the world out of legend and set it on the table where it could be checked.
6.7Thanks to those who make songs.
6.8Someone asks: what have poems to do with this scripture?
6.9This: the reasoners tell us how a thing is. The singers make us actually feel that it is so.
6.10To know a thing and not feel it leaves a person standing still.
6.11A mother who has just lost her child does not need a doctrine. She needs someone to put the thing in a shape she can hold.
6.12So we do not treat poetry as ornament. Poetry is the stretch of road that carries knowing into the heart.
6.13These three we thank alike.
6.14Without the reasoners we would believe wrong things.
6.15Without the measurers we would go on believing them.
6.16Without the singers we would believe rightly and not move.
6.17We do not ask to be heard. We say it because we mean to remember.