of the Finnish Olympus, the harmonies of which no mortal hand could awaken, but which, "when the god himself touched the strings, accompanying it with his voice, caused the birds of the air, the beasts of the field and the fishes of the sea to listen attentively, while even Wäinämöinen was himself moved to tears which fell like pearls down his robe." With the grouping of many weird and beautiful fancies, Longfellow, in "The Tales of a Wayside Inn," describes his Musician:
He lived in that ideal world
Whose language is not speech, but song;
Around him evermore the throng
Of elves and sprites their dances whirled;
The Stromkarl sang, the cataract hurled
Its headlong waters from the height;
And mingled in the wild delight
The scream of sea birds in their flight,
The rumor of the forest trees.
The plunge of the implacable seas,
The tumult of the wind at night,
Voices of eld, like trumpets blowing,
Old ballads, and wild melodies
Through mist and darkness pouring forth,
Like Elivagar's river flowing
Out of the glaciers of the North.
And when he played, the atmosphere
Was filled with magic, and the ear
Caught echoes of that Harp of Gold,
Whose music had so weird a sound,
The hunted stag forgot to bound,
The leaping rivulet backward rolled.
The birds came down from bush and tree.
The dead came from beneath the sea.
The maiden to the harper's knee.
