NEW – G. Schirmer Dale Warland Choral Series – I AM MUSIC by Dale Trumbore

“I tell the story of love, the story of hate, the story that saves, and damns.  
I am the incense upon which prayers float to heaven.
I am the smoke which palls over the field of battle where men lie dying with me on their lips.

I am close to the marriage altar, and when the graves open, I stand nearby.
I call the wanderer home, I rescue the soul from the depths.
I open the lips of lovers and through me the dead whisper to the living.

I speak through the birds of the air, the insects of the field,
the crash of the waters on rock-ribbed shores, the sighing of wind in the trees, and I am even heard 
by the soul that knows me in the clatter of wheels on city streets.

Through me spirits immortal speak the message that makes the world weep, and laugh, and wonder, and worship.

I know my brother, yet all men are my brothers;
I am of them and they are of me, for I am the instrument of God.
I am music.”

—Anonymous, ca. 1919