LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,109)
  • Text Authors (19,482)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,114)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

×

Attention! Some of this material is not in the public domain.

It is illegal to copy and distribute our copyright-protected material without permission. It is also illegal to reprint copyright texts or translations without the name of the author or translator.

To inquire about permissions and rates, contact Emily Ezust at licenses@email.lieder.example.net

If you wish to reprint translations, please make sure you include the names of the translators in your email. They are below each translation.

Note: You must use the copyright symbol © when you reprint copyright-protected material.

by D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence (1885 - 1930)
Translation © by Bertram Kottmann

Song of death
Language: English 
Our translations:  GER
Sing the song of death, O sing it!
for without the song of death, the song of life
becomes pointless and silly.

Sing then the song of death, and the longest journey,
and what the soul takes with him, and what he leaves behind,
and how he enters fold after fold of deepening darkness
for the cosmos even in death is like a dark whorled shell
whose whorls fold round to the core of soundless silence and pivotal oblivion
where the soul comes at last, and has utter peace.

Sing then the core of dark and absolute
oblivion where the soul at last is lost
in utter peace.
Sing the song of death, O sing it!

Text Authorship:

  • by D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence (1885 - 1930), "Song of Death" [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by Becky Llewellyn (b. 1950), "Song of death", 1990 [low voice and viola], from Last poems : three songs on death and dying, no. 1. [
     text not verified 
    ]

Available translations, adaptations, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , title 1: "Lied vom Tod", copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Researcher for this page: Bertram Kottmann

This text was added to the website: 2016-11-08
Line count: 13
Word count: 116

Lied vom Tod
Language: German (Deutsch)  after the English 
Singt das Lied vom Tod, ja, singt es!
Denn bleibt es ungesungen, dann wird das Lied des Lebens
sinnlos und absurd.

So stimmt alsdann das Lied vom Tode an und dieser längsten Reise,
und was die Seele wohl nimmt mit und was zurück sie lässt,
und wie sie eindringt, Schicht um Schicht, und tief und tiefer in ein Dunkel,
denn das All gleicht - selbst im Tod - dem gewundenen Gehäuse einer dunklen Muschel,
das sich auf ein Innerstes aus absoluter Stille und völligem Vergessen hinzentriert,
auf dass die Seele endlich dort ankommt und den vollkommnen Frieden findet.

Singt diesem Innersten aus Dunkelheit und völligem Vergessen,
wo endlich dann die Seele sich versenkt
in vollkommnem Frieden.
Singt das Lied vom Tod, ja, singt es!

Text Authorship:

  • Translation from English to German (Deutsch) copyright © 2016 by Bertram Kottmann, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you must ask the copyright-holder(s) directly for permission. If you receive no response, you must consider it a refusal.

    Bertram Kottmann.  Contact: BKottmann (AT) t-online.de

    If you wish to commission a new translation, please contact: licenses@email.lieder.example.net

Based on:

  • a text in English by D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence (1885 - 1930), "Song of Death"
    • Go to the text page.

 

This text was added to the website: 2016-11-08
Line count: 13
Word count: 122

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris