Kynäelmiä IV : Runosommitelmia by Kaarlo Hemmo
Kynäelmiä IV by Kaarlo Hemmo is a collection of Finnish poems written in the early 20th century. It blends patriotic and moral verse, narrative ballads, nature and love lyrics, and occasional pieces, often exalting the Finnish language, rural grit, and civic unity while warning against vanity, factionalism, and social injustice. The tones range from hymnic and elegiac to satirical and humorous, with folkloric figures and everyday Finns stepping into brief, story-like scenes.
The opening of the collection begins with a spring proem that likens Finland’s many voices to a shared birdsong and invokes Väinö’s kantele as a symbol of national harmony. It then praises the beauty and power of the Finnish tongue, exhorts the “Suomalainen” to don figurative iron and keep faith with freedom, and addresses farmers after disarmament, casting tools as the nation’s true weapons. A May Day poem laments student factionalism and urges unity. Narrative pieces follow: a wartime family memory ending in a baby’s rescue, the ballad of “Maukosukko” who rides to the Swedish king to defend his farm and wins by law, and a satire of a glory-seeking king undone by his own war. The sequence turns to piety and social feeling with “Pyhän Kirjan Kaisa,” elegies and consolations, and short maxims, then to darker urban and maritime tales (a fisherman lured by dreamlike Ahtola to his death; a destitute mother and infant lost to smoke and hunger). It rounds out this opening stretch with reflections on the true meaning of Christmas, serene nature odes (Punkaharju, Rautalampi), light love lyrics and playful sketches, and the first “occasional” civic addresses calling Parliament to unity. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Read or download for free
For an overview of the different reading options, see our Reading Guide
| Reading Options | Url | Size | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read now! | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77670.html.images | 175 kB | |||
| EPUB3 (E-readers incl. Send-to-Kindle) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77670.epub3.images | 125 kB | |||
| EPUB (older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77670.epub.images | 125 kB | |||
| EPUB (no images, older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77670.epub.noimages | 110 kB | |||
| Kindle | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77670.kf8.images | 242 kB | |||
| older Kindles | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77670.kindle.images | 219 kB | |||
| Plain Text UTF-8 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77670.txt.utf-8 | 123 kB | |||
| Download HTML (zip) | https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/77670/pg77670-h.zip | 128 kB | |||
| There may be more files related to this item. | |||||
Similar Books
About this eBook
| Author | Hemmo, Kaarlo, 1858-1940 |
|---|---|
| Title | Kynäelmiä IV : Runosommitelmia |
| Original Publication | Helsinki: Kotkavuoren välitysliike, 1917. |
| Credits | Juhani Kärkkäinen and Tapio Riikonen |
| Language | Finnish |
| LoC Class | PH: Language and Literatures: Finno-Ugrian and Basque languages and literatures |
| Subject | Finnish poetry |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 77670 |
| Release Date | Jan 10, 2026 |
| Most Recently Updated | Jan 14, 2026 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 161 downloads in the last 30 days. |
| Project Gutenberg eBooks are always free! | |