Song gains almost the same value when the words are only there as a support for the voice.

The great beauty of the psalms and hymns of the Church lies in the fact that being sung in an unknown tongue they make no appeal to the intelligence; they say nothing, but they express everything with marvellous modulations like a celestial accompaniment, which follows the believer's emotions from the most agonizing struggles to the most unspeakable ecstasies.
So Francis went on his way, deeply inhaling the odors of spring, singing at the top of his voice one of those songs of French chivalry which he had learned in days gone by.
The forest in which he was walking was the usual retreat of such people of Assisi and its environs as had any reason for hiding.

Some ruffians, aroused by his voice, suddenly fell upon him.

"Who are you ?" they asked.
"I am the herald of the great King," he answered "but what is that to you ?" His only garment was an old mantle which the bishop's gardener had lent him at his master's request.

They stripped it from him, and throwing him into a ditch full of snow, "There is your place, poor herald of God," they said.
The robbers gone, he shook off the snow which covered him, and after may efforts succeeded in extricating himself from the ditch.