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 rivers flowing
Out of the glaciers of the North.
These are the things that make poets, and musicians are poets. Then continues the same author:
And when he played, the atmosphere
Was filled with music, and the ear
Caught echo of that harp of gold
Whose music had so weird a sound,
The heeled stag forgot to bound,
The leaping rivulet backward rolled,
The bird came down from bush and tree,
The dead came from beneath the sea,
The maiden to the harper's knee.
Only these few lines make it clear that Longfellow has not only communed with Brage, but has also refreshed himself at the Castalian fountain; that he has not only penetrated the mysteries of the Greek mythology, but has also visited the deities of the North.
If you do not believe that the Norse mythology furnishes suitable themes for poetry, then do not echo the voice of the multitude and cry the idea down because it seems new. Men frequently act like ants. When a red ant appears among the black ones, they all attack it, for they have once for all made up their minds that all ants must necessarily be black; they have themselves been black all their lives, and all their ancestors were black, so far as they know anything about them. Thus it has become a fixed opinion with many, that mythology necessarily means Greek or Roman. We said to one of our friends:
