But there are also two kinds of imagination, or rather two ways in which
imagination may display itself--as an active power or as a passive
quality of the mind. The former reshapes the impressions it receives
from nature to give them expression in more ideal forms; the latter
reproduces them simply and freshly without any adulteration by
conventional phrase, without any deliberate manipulation of them by the
conscious fancy. Imagination as an active power concerns itself with
expression, whether it be in giving that unity of form which we call
art, or in that intenser phrase where word and thing leap together in a
vivid flash of sympathy, so that we almost doubt whether the poet was
conscious of his own magic, and whether we ourselves have not
communicated the very charm we feel. A few such utterances have come
down to us to which every generation adds some new significance out of
its own store, till they do for the imagination what proverbs do for the
understanding, and, passing into the common currency of speech, become
the property of every man and no man. On the other hand, wonder, which
is the raw material in which imagination finds food for her loom, is the
property of primitive peoples and primitive poets. There is always here
a certain intimacy with nature, and a consequent simplicity of phrases
and images, that please us all the more as the artificial conditions
remove us farther from it. When a man happens to be born with that happy
combination of qualities which enables him to renew this simple and
natural relation with the world about him, however little or however
much, we call him a poet, and surrender ourselves gladly to his gracious
and incommunicable gift. 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.
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.
Then into a skein I wound them,
Bound them fast into a bundle,
Laid upon my ledge the burthen,
Bore them with me to my dwelling,
On the garret beams I stored them,
In the great chest bound with copper.
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-renownèd?
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 grasses;
Even the water sinks to quiet
From its rushing 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-rushing
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 guardianship 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 shield 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 shiver,
Learned too well to weep of winter.
Yet there be full many people
Who with evil voice assail 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 fashion
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.