The folk-poet lives out of doors; he is acquainted with the home life of the sun and stars, and day-break is his daily luxury. The Eskimo tell a story of a stay-at-home man who dwelt in an island near the coast of East Greenland. It was his chief joy to see the sun rising in the morning, out of the sea, and with that he was content. But when his son had come to years of discretion, he persuaded his father to set out in a boat, so that he might see a little of the world. The man started from the island; no sooner, however, had he passed Cape Farewell than he saw the sun beginning to rise behind the land. It was more than he could bear; and he set off at once for his home. Next morning very early he went out of his tent; he did not come back. When he was sought after, he was found quite dead. The joy of seeing the sun rising again out of the sea had killed him. Most likely the story is based on a real incident. The Aztec goes out upon his roof to see the sunrise; it is his one religious observance. But of the cult of the sun I must not begin to speak. It belongs to an immense subject that cannot be touched here: the wide range of the unconscious appreciation of nature which was worship.
There is nothing more graceful in all folk-poesy than a little Czech star-poem:—
Star, pale star,
Didst thou know love,
Hadst thou a heart, my golden star,
Thou wouldst weep sparks.
Further north men do not willingly stay out abroad at night, but those whose calling obliges them to do so are looked upon as wise in strange lore. The first tidings of war coming reached the Esthonian shepherd boy, the keeper of the lambs, "who knew the sun, and knew the moon, and knew the stars in the sky." In Neo-Sanskrit speaking Lithuania there abound star-legends which differ from the southern tales of the same order, by reason of the pagan good faith that clings to them, The Italian is aware that he is romancing when he speaks of the moon travelling through the night to meet the morning star, or when he describes her anger at the loss of one of her stars; the Lithuanian has a suspicion that there may be a good deal of truth in his poets' account of the sun's domestic arrangements—how the morning star lights the fire for him to get up by, and the evening star makes his bed. He will tell you that once there was a time when sun and moon journeyed together, but the moon fell in love with the morning star, which brought about sad mischief. "The moon went with the sun in the early spring; the sun got up early; the moon went away from him. The moon walked alone, fell in love with the morning star. Perkun, greatly angered, stabbed her with a sword. 'Why wentest thou away from the sun? Why walk alone in the night? Why fall in love with the morning star? Your heart is full of sorrow.'" The Lithuanians have not wholly left that stage in man's development when what is imagined seems primâ facie quite as likely to be real as what is seen. The supernatural does not strike them as either mysterious or terrifying. It is otherwise with the Teuton. His night phantasms treat of what is, to man, of all things the most genuinely alarming—his own shadow. Ghosts, wild huntsmen, erl-kings take the place of an innocuous un-mortal race. No starry radiance can rob the night of its terrors. "The stars shine in the sky, bright shine the rays of the moon, fast ride the dead." Such is the wailing burden to the ballad which Burgher imitated in his Lenore. There is a wide gulf between this and the tender star-idylls of Lithuania, and a gulf still wider divides it from the neighbourly familiarity with which the southerner addresses the heavenly bodies. We go from one world to another when we turn back to Italy and hear the country lads singing, "La buona sera, O stella mattutina!" "Good evening to you, O matutinal star."
The West African negroes call the sky the king of sheds, and the sun the king of torches; the twinkling stars are the little chickens, and the meteor is the thief-star. "When day dawns, you rejoice," say the Yorubas; "do you not know that the day of death is so much the nearer?" The same tribe give this vivid description of a day-break scene: "The trader betakes himself to his trade, the spinner takes his distaff, the warrior takes his shield, the weaver bends over his sley, the farmer awakes, he and his hoe-handle, the hunter awakes, with his quiver and bow." Thoughtless of toil, the Tuscan joyfully cries, "Dawn is about to appear, bells chime, windows open, heaven and earth sing." The Greek holds that he who has not journeyed with the moon by night, or at dawn with the dew, has not tasted the world. Folk-poets have widely recognised the mysterious confusion between summer nights and days. The dispute at Juliet's window is recalled by the Venetian's chiding of the "Rondinella Traditora;" by the Berry peasants' vexation at the "vilaine alouette;" by the reproach of the Navarrese lover, "You say it is day, it is not yet midnight;" and most of all by the Servian dialogue: "Dawn whitens, the cock crows: It is not the dawn, but the moon. The cows low round the house: It is not the cows, it is the call to prayer. The Turks call to the mosque: It is not the Turks, it is the wolves." The observation of the swallow's morning song is another point at which the master poet and the obscure folk-singer meet. This time both are natives of sunny lands; there is a clear reason why it should be so—in the north the swallow passes almost for a dumb bird. Very rarely in England do we hear her notes, soft yet penetrating, like the high-pitched whisper of the Æolian harp. Some of us may, indeed, have first got acquainted with them in Dante's beautiful lines:—
Nell' ora che comincia i tristi lai
La Rondinella presso alia mattina ...