Definition of "melody"

There is a melody upon the Earth as though ten thousand streams all sang together for their homes that they had forsaken in the hills.

1905, [Edward Plunkett,] Lord Dunsany, The Gods of Pegāna‎, London: Elkin Mathews, […], page 15

Slowly she turned round and faced towards a neat white bungalow, set some way back from the path behind a low hedge of golden privet. No light showed, but someone there was playing the piano. The strange elusiveness of the soft, insistent melody seemed to draw her forward.

1954, Alexander Alderson, chapter 1, in The Subtle Minotaur‎