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So leb' ich nicht vergebens
Translations © by Bertram Kottmann
Song Cycle by Joel Weiss
View original-language texts alone: I Shall not Live in Vain
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!
Über die, die fliegen, - Vögel, Stunden, Bienen -, keine Elegien. Über die, die bleiben, - Leid, Berge, Ewigkeiten -, darf ich auch nichts schreiben. Was ruht, wird auferstehn. Dem auf den Grund zu gehn? Wie still / doch dies Rätsel liegt / lügt!
Text Authorship:
- Translation from English to German (Deutsch) copyright © 2018 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 Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title
Go to the general single-text view
This text was added to the website: 2018-11-07
Line count: 9
Word count: 42
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.
Zum Greifen nah! Nichts angepackt! Wohl hätt’ ich’s können tun! Ruhig durchs Dorf geschlendert, ruhig zum Dorf hinaus! So wie in Wiesen Veilchen ganz unvermutet blühn, zu spät nun für den Pflücker, der Stund’ zuvor dort ging.
Text Authorship:
- Translation from English to German (Deutsch) copyright © 2018 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 Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title
Go to the general single-text view
This text was added to the website: 2018-11-07
Line count: 9
Word count: 37
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.
Den Glauben zu verlier’n, ist mehr als den Besitz. Besitz kann man erneut gewinnen - Glauben nicht. Verliehen mit dem Sein gibt es ihn bloß einmal; hebt man nur eine Klausel auf, wird Dasein Not und Qual.
Text Authorship:
- Translation from English to German (Deutsch) copyright © 2018 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 Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title
Go to the general single-text view
This text was added to the website: 2018-11-07
Line count: 8
Word count: 36
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!
Am Galgen hing ein armer Kerl zu schmutzig für die Höll’, die laut Gesetz er hat verdient. Und als der Vorhang fiel, kam angewankt, die ihn einst trug, denn dieser war ihr Sohn. „Mein Alles war’s“ - sie rang nach Luft - welch Gabe - leichenblass!
Text Authorship:
- Translation from English to German (Deutsch) copyright © 2018 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 Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title
Go to the general single-text view
This text was added to the website: 2018-11-07
Line count: 8
Word count: 43
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.
Text Authorship:
- by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title, appears in Poems of Emily Dickinson, first published 1890
See other settings of this text.
Kann ich auch nur ein Herz am Brechen hindern, so leb' ich nicht vergebens; und kann ich eines Wesens Schmerzen lindern und Nöte seines Lebens, und kann ein mattes Vöglein ich ins Nest aufs Neue heben - so leb' ich nicht vergebens.
Text Authorship:
- Translation from English to German (Deutsch) copyright © 2011 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 Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title, appears in Poems of Emily Dickinson, first published 1890
Go to the general single-text view
Anmerkung des Übersetzers: prosodische Gründe ließen 'robin' = Rotkehlchen (Erithacus rubecula) zum 'Vöglein ' werden.This text was added to the website: 2011-02-05
Line count: 7
Word count: 41