But the renewal of these conditions becomes
with the advance of every generation in literary culture and social
refinement more difficult. Ballads, for example, are never produced
among cultivated people. Like the mayflower, they love the woods, and
will not be naturalized in the garden. Now, the advantage of that
primitive kind of poetry of which I was just speaking is that it finds
its imaginative components ready made to its hand. But an illustration
is worth more than any amount of discourse. Let me read you a few
passages from a poem which grew up under the true conditions of natural
and primitive literature--remoteness, primitiveness of manners, and
dependence on native traditions. I mean the epic of Finland--Kalevala.[1]
[Footnote 1: This translation is Mr. Lowell's, and, so far as I know,
has not been printed.--C.E. NORTON.]
I am driven by my longing,
Of my thought I hear the summons
That to singing I betake me,
That I give myself to speaking,
That our race's lay I utter,
Song for ages handed downward.
Words upon my lips are melting,
And the eager tones escaping
Will my very tongue outhasten,
Will my teeth, despite me, open.
Golden friend, beloved brother,
Dear one that grew up beside me,
Join thee with me now in singing,
Join thee with me now in speaking,
Since we here have come together,
Journeying by divers pathways;
Seldom do we come together,
One comes seldom to the other,
In the barren fields far-lying,
On the hard breast of the Northland.
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