Four Songs on Poems of Emily Dickinson

Song Cycle by Leonard Berkowitz (b. 1926)

Translated to:

German (Deutsch) — Vier Lieder auf Gedichten von Emily Dickinson (Bertram Kottmann)

1. I'm nobody [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us - don't tell!
They'd [banish us]¹, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell [your]² name the livelong [day]³
To an admiring bog!

Text Authorship:

by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title, appears in Poems by Emily Dickinson, first published 1891

See other settings of this text.

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

FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
GER German (Deutsch) (Walter A. Aue) , "Ich bin ein Niemand! Wer bist Du?", copyright © 2006, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "Io non sono nessuno, e tu?", copyright © 2006, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

View original text (without footnotes)
¹ Bacon, G. Coates: "advertise"
² Bacon, G. Coates: "one's"
³ Bacon, G. Coates: "June"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

2. Hope [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

Hope is [the]¹ thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Text Authorship:

by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title, appears in Poems by Emily Dickinson, first published 1891

See other settings of this text.

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

FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
GER German (Deutsch) (Walter A. Aue) , copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2011, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

View original text (without footnotes)
¹ Syderman: "a"; further changes may exist not noted.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

3. The wind [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

The Wind took up the Northern Things
And piled them in the south --
Then gave the East unto the West
And opening his mouth

The four Divisions of the Earth
Did make as to devour
While everything to corners slunk
Behind the awful power --

The Wind -- unto his Chambers went
And nature ventured out --
Her subjects scattered into place
Her systems ranged about

Again the smoke from Dwellings rose
The Day abroad was heard --
How intimate, a Tempest past
The Transport of the Bird --

Text Authorship:

by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), appears in Bolts of Melody, first published 1945

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

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

4. I never saw a moor [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

I never saw a moor,
I never saw the sea;
Yet know I how the heather looks,
And what a wave must be.

I never spoke with God,
Nor visited in heaven;
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the chart were given.

Text Authorship:

by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title, appears in Poems of Emily Dickinson, first published 1890

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: 246