How Can I Keep From Singing?

My life goes on in endless song

Above Earth's lamentation

I hear the real though far-off hymn

That hails a new creation

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No storm can shake my inmost calm

While to that rock I'm clinging

Since love is Lord of heaven and earth

How can I keep from singing?

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This is variously described as a Shaker, Quaker, or 'Sunday School' hymn that I first heard sung a capella by John McCutcheon. (I had to look 'capella' up; two p's is the Italian spelling, one the Latin.)

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It's one of my favorite hymns, though I find it more or less 'areligious', if there were such a word. By that I don't mean 'secular'; I mean it's a spiritual feeling that can't be tied to any one religion.

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Imagine.

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May, waxing ecstatic