The Dolci Show

Dolci Show #8: Schumann - A Poet’s Love

May 15, 2020 Ted Rust and Viva Knight Season 1 Episode 8
The Dolci Show
Dolci Show #8: Schumann - A Poet’s Love
Show Notes

1. In beautiful May, when the buds opened, love opened up in my heart: when the birds all sang, I told you my desire and longing.

2. Many flowers spring up from my tears, and a nightingale choir from my sighs: If you love me, I'll pick them all for you, and a nightingale will sing at your window.

3. I used to love the rose, lily, dove and sun, joyfully: now I love only the little, the fine, the pure, the One: you are the source of them all.

4. When I look in your eyes all my pain and woe fades: when I kiss your mouth I become whole: when I recline on your breast I am filled with heavenly joy: and when you say, 'I love you', I weep bitterly.

5. I want to bathe my soul in the chalice of the lily, and the lily, ringing, will breathe a song of my beloved. The song will tremble and quiver, like the kiss of her mouth, which in a wondrous moment she gave me.

6. In the Rhine, in the sacred stream, Cologne with its great cathedral is reflected. In it there is a face painted on golden leather, which has shone into the confusion of my life. … the eyes, lips and cheeks are just like those of my beloved.

7. I hold no grudge, though my heart breaks, love ever lost to me … I saw the night in your heart, I saw the serpent that devours it: I saw, my love, how empty you are.

8. If the little flowers only knew how deeply my heart is wounded, they would weep with me to heal my suffering, but …  only one knows, she that has torn my heart asunder.

9. There is a noise of flutes and fiddles and trumpets, for they are dancing the wedding-dance of my best-beloved. There is a thunder and booming of kettle-drums and shawms. In between, you can hear the good cupids sobbing and moaning.

10. When I hear that song which my love once sang, my breast bursts with wild affliction. Dark longing drives me to the forest hills, where my woe pours out in tears.

11. A youth loved a maiden who chose another: the other loved another girl, and married her. The maiden married, from spite, the first and best man she met. ... It's the old story, always new: the one whom she turns aside, she breaks his heart in two.

12. On a sunny summer morning I went out into the garden: the flowers were talking and whispering, but I was silent. They looked at me with pity, and said, 'Don't be cruel to our sister, you sad, death-pale man.'

13. I wept in my dream, for I dreamt you were in your grave: I woke, and tears ran down my cheeks. …

14. I see you every night in dreams, and see you greet me friendly, and crying out loudly I throw myself at your sweet feet. You look at me sorrowfully and shake your fair head ... You say a gentle word to me and give me a sprig of cypress: I awake, and there is no sprig, and I have forgotten what the word was.

15. The old fairy tales tell of a magic land where flowers shine in the golden evening light, where trees speak and sing like a choir, and songs of love are sung such as you have never heard, till wondrous sweet longing infatuates you! … Ah! I often see that land of joys in dreams: then comes the morning sun, and it vanishes like smoke.

16. The old wicked songs, and the angry, bitter dreams, let us now bury them …  the coffin must be bigger than the Heidelburg Tun. ... And bring me twelve giants, who must be mightier than the St. Christopher in the cathedral at Cologne. They must carry the coffin and throw it in the sea. … Why must the coffin must be so big and heavy? I will also put my love and my suffering into it.