I Shall not Live in Vain

Song Cycle by Joel Weiss

Translated to:

German (Deutsch) — So leb' ich nicht vergebens (Bertram Kottmann)

1. The secret [sung text checked 1 time]

Some things that fly there be, —
Birds, hours, the bumble-bee:
Of these no elegy.

Some things that stay there be, —
Grief, hills, eternity:
Nor this behooveth me.

There are, that resting, rise.
Can I expound the skies?
How still the riddle lies!

Authorship:

by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

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

GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Joel Weiss

2. Almost [sung text checked 1 time]

Within my reach!
I could have touched!
I might have chanced that way!
Soft sauntered through the village,
Sauntered as soft away!
So unsuspected violets
Within the fields lie low,
Too late for striving fingers
That passed, an hour ago.

Authorship:

by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

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

GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Joel Weiss

3. Lost faith [sung text checked 1 time]

To lose one’s faith surpasses 
the loss of an estate,
Because estates can be
Replenished, — faith cannot.

Inherited with life,
Belief but once can be;
Annihilate a single clause,
And Being’s beggary.

Authorship:

by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

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

GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Joel Weiss

4. Upon the gallows hung a wretch [sung text checked 1 time]

Upon the gallows hung a wretch,
Too sullied for the hell
To which the law entitled him.
As nature's curtain fell
The one who bore him tottered in , —
For this was woman's son.
"'Twere all I had," she stricken gasped —
Oh, what a livid boon!

Authorship:

by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

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

Researcher for this text: Joel Weiss

5. If I can stop one heart from breaking [sung text checked 1 time]

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

Authorship:

by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title, appears in Poems of Emily Dickinson, first published 1890 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

See other settings of this text.

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

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

Total word count: 206