Dictionary

heartsong en · NOUN

Etymology

From heart + song.

Meanings

1. (obsolete) A heartwarming song or poem.
   • Many of his lyrics are heartsongs that will chord with human life as long as it has sorrows and aspirations. 1896, Self Culture - Volume 3, page 524:
   • How the crest-hunting rich and the wealth-seeking wearers of inherited honors and the popularity-seeking and place-hunting politicians whom their promoters half satirically style “great” dwindle when compared with this man, who with a few simple little heartsongs had won the love of children, had found a place in the hearts of those who mourn and hand entered the home and made it the happier and better for his presence! 1895, Johnson Brigham, Midland Monthly Magazine - Volume 4, page 572:
   • “Home, Sweet Home” has been sung by the world's Greatest Artists for the Viotrola; after the class has heard the story of "the Homeless Bard of Home” it may sing this famous heartsong with the band accompaniment on Victor Record 18145. 1917, The Educator-journal - Volume 18, page 229:
2. A song or message that is deeply heartfelt.
   • So we, when our Great High Priest shall come, Begirt of power, enrobed of state, And the peoples of ten thousand isles With eager joy His advent wait, Shall hail, with a heartsong of rapture, His step on our sin-furrowed strand ; Shall march, with the grand triumphal throng, In the glow of a God-lit land. 1893, Elizabeth Susan MacLeod, Carols of Canada, Etc., Etc, page 31:
   • With hymning we will praise Thee, Our heartsong we lift up to Thee, Thou glorious evermore; 1883, University of Michigan Student Religious Association, Bulletin, page 191:
   • Over life's long trail a-winding, We wend our onward way, Sometimes with spirits broken, Sometimes with heartsongs gay. 1920, The Railroad Trainman - Volume 37, page 215:
3. The expression of a person's inner essence, underlying identity, and reason for existence.
   • All cathedrals, pontificalities, brass and stone, and outer arrangement never so lasting, are brief in comparison to an unfathomable heartsong like this : one feels as if it might survive, still of importance to men, when these had all sunk into new irrecognisable combinations, and had ceased individually to be. 1863, Sartor Resartus (1831).: Lectures on Heroes (1840)., page 259:
   • The words he speaks carry a familiar message. He lifts me up to sing my infinite heartsong. He is a musical tone that rings out to embrace the morning sky. 2005, Roger Calverley, The Primal Runes: Archetypes of Invocation and Empowerment, →ISBN:
   • To be sung to in this way by the entire faery kingdom, each member of it born from the heartsong of a camper, was truly a delight that not many, I believe, have known. 2010, Erjan J. Slavin, The Tale of the Mirror (& The Wishing Tree Poetry), →ISBN, page 72:

Forms