Part 6 (1/2)
Long time in the cold they lay there, Under lock and key a long time; From the cold shall I forth bring them?
Bring my lays from out the frost there 'Neath this roof so wide-renowned?
Here my song-chest shall I open, Chest with runic lays o'errunning?
Shall I here untie my bundle, And begin my skein unwinding?
Now my lips at last must close them And my tongue at last be fettered; I must leave my lay unfinished, And must cease from cheerful singing; Even the horses must repose them When all day they have been running; Even the iron's self grows weary Mowing down the summer gra.s.ses; Even the water sinks to quiet From its rus.h.i.+ng in the river; Even the fire seeks rest in ashes That all night hath roared and crackled; Wherefore should not music also, Song itself, at last grow weary After the long eve's contentment And the fading of the twilight?
I have also heard say often, Heard it many times repeated, That the cataract swift-rus.h.i.+ng Not in one gush spends its waters, And in like sort cunning singers Do not spend their utmost secret, Yea, to end betimes is better Than to break the thread abruptly.
Ending, then, as I began them, Closing thus and thus completing, I fold up my pack of ballads, Roll them closely in a bundle, Lay them safely in the storeroom, In the strong bone-castle's chamber, That they never thence be stolen, Never in all time be lost thence, Though the castle's wall be broken, Though the bones be rent asunder, Though the teeth may be pried open, And the tongue be set in motion.
How, then, were it sang I always Till my songs grew poor and poorer, Till the dells alone would hear me, Only the deaf fir-trees listen?
Not in life is she, my mother, She no longer is aboveground; She, the golden, cannot hear me, 'T is the fir-trees now that hear me, 'T is the pine-tops understand me, And the birch-crowns full of goodness, And the ash-trees now that love me!
Small and weak my mother left me, Like a lark upon the cliff-top, Like a young thrush 'mid the flintstones In the guardians.h.i.+p of strangers, In the keeping of the stepdame.
She would drive the little orphan.
Drive the child with none to love him, To the cold side of the chimney, To the north side of the cottage.
Where the wind that felt no pity, Bit the boy with none to s.h.i.+eld him.
Larklike, then, I forth betook me, Like a little bird to wander.
Silent, o'er the country straying Yon and hither, full of sadness.
With the winds I made acquaintance Felt the will of every tempest.
Learned of bitter frost to s.h.i.+ver, Learned too well to weep of winter.
Yet there be full many people Who with evil voice a.s.sail me, And with tongue of poison sting me, Saying that my lips are skilless, That the ways of song I know not, Nor the ballad's pleasant turnings.
Ah, you should not, kindly people, Therein seek a cause to blame me, That, a child, I sang too often, That, unfledged, I twittered only.
I have never had a teacher, Never heard the speech of great men, Never learned a word unhomely, Nor fine phrases of the stranger.
Others to the school were going, I alone at home must keep me, Could not leave my mother's elbow, In the wide world had her only; In the house had I my schooling, From the rafters of the chamber.
From the spindle of my mother, From the axehelve of my father, In the early days of childhood; But for this it does not matter, I have shown the way to singers, Shown the way, and blazed the tree-bark, Snapped the twigs, and marked the footpath; Here shall be the way in future, Here the track at last be opened For the singers better-gifted, For the songs more rich than mine are, Of the youth that now are waxing, In the good time that is coming!
Like Virgil's husbandman, our minstrel did not know how well off he was to have been without schooling. This, I think, every one feels at once to be poetry that sings itself. It makes its own tune, and the heart beats in time to its measure. By and by poets will begin to say, like Goethe, ”I sing as the bird sings”; but this poet sings in that fas.h.i.+on without thinking of it or knowing it. And it is the very music of his race and country which speaks through him with such simple pathos.
Finland is the mother and Russia is the stepdame, and the listeners to the old national lays grow fewer every day. Before long the Fins will be writing songs in the manner of Heine, and dramas in imitation of ”Faust.” Doubtless the material of original poetry lies in all of us, but in proportion as the mind is conventionalized by literature, it is apt to look about it for models, instead of looking inward for that native force which makes models, but does not follow them. This rose of originality which we long for, this bloom of imagination whose perfume enchants us--we can seldom find it when it is near us, when it is part of our daily lives.
REVIEWS OF CONTEMPORARIES
HENRY JAMES
JAMES'S TALES AND SKETCHES[1]
[Footnote 1: _A Pa.s.sionate Pilgrim, and Other Tales_. By Henry James, Jr.
Boston: J.R. Osgood & Co.
_Transatlantic Sketches_. By the same author.]
Whoever takes an interest, whether of mere curiosity or of critical foreboding, in the product and tendency of our younger literature, must have had his attention awakened and detained by the writings of Mr.
James. Whatever else they may be, they are not common, and have that air of good breeding which is the token of whatever is properly called literature. They are not the overflow of a shallow talent for improvisation too full of self to be contained, but show everywhere the marks of intelligent purpose and of the graceful ease that comes only of conscientious training. Undoubtedly there was a large capital of native endowment to start from--a mind of singular subtlety and refinement; a faculty of rapid observation, yet patient of rectifying afterthought; senses daintily alive to every aesthetic suggestion; and a frank enthusiasm, kept within due bounds by the double-consciousness of humor.