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.

  Hand in hand together clasping,
  Finger fast with finger clasping,
  Gladly we our song will utter,
  Of our lays will give the choicest—­
  So that friends may understand it. 
  And the kindly ones may hear it. 
  In their youth which now is waxing,
  Climbing upward into manhood: 
  These our words of old tradition,
  These our lays that we have borrowed
  From the belt of Wainamoinen,
  From the forge of Ilmarinen,
  From the sword of Kaukomeli,
  From the bow of Jonkahainen,
  From the borders of the ice-fields,
  From the plains of Kalevala.

  These my father sang before me,
  As the axe’s helve he fashioned;
  These were taught me by my mother,
  As she sat and twirled her spindle,
  While I on the floor was lying,
  At her feet, a child was rolling;
  Never songs of Sampo failed her. 
  Magic songs of Lonhi never;
  Sampo in her song grew aged,
  Lonhi with her magic vanished,
  In her singing died Wipunen,
  As I played, died Lunminkainen. 
  Other words there are a many,
  Magic words that I have taught me,
  Which I picked up from the pathway,
  Which I gathered from the forest,
  Which I snapped from wayside bushes,
  Which I gleaned from slender grass-blades,
  Which I found upon the foot-bridge. 
  When I wandered as a herd-boy. 
  As a child into the pastures,
  To the meadows rich in honey,
  To the sun-begoldened hilltops,
  Following the black Maurikki
  By the side of brindled Kimmo.

  Lays the winter gave me also,
  Song was given me by the rain-storm,
  Other lays the wind-gusts blew me,
  And the waves of ocean brought them;
  Words I borrowed of the song-birds,
  And wise sayings from the tree-tops.