Eino Leino

Eino Leino, 1912

Eino Leino (6 July 1878 – 10 January 1926) was a Finnish poet and journalist and is considered one of the pioneers of Finnish poetry. His poems combine modern and Finnish folk elements. The style of much of his work is like the Kalevala and folk songs.

Quotes

• The others got heart, I got the harp.

They grieved, had fun, me not, me not.

O wretched me, can't live, nor part:

my heart throbs not, but tingles, and rings!

O dire fate, the hardest lot:

no peace grants the night, the day no less,

no mercy shows time, nor eternity:

just a jeering and tingling heart-less-ness.

• Eino Leino. "The Harp-Of-the-Wind," (1905), Leevi Lehto (transl.), in: Leevi Lehto. Leevi Lehto. Finnish poetry: then and now, January 2005. Published online at upenn.edu. Accessed 20-03-2013

• I sang to my dear dead mother

and she instantly understood me,

and pressing a kiss to my forehead said

as into her arms she pulled me:

Believe then in truth, or in fantasy, –

if you'll only believe in it utterly!

For truth is what you believe it to be.

My son, believe in your dream!

• Eino Leino, "Smiling Apollo," in: Antti Tuomainen (2015), Dark As My Heart, p. 87

External links

• Works by or about Eino Leino at Internet Archive