by
John Keats (1795 - 1821)
My spirit is too weak; mortality
Language: English
Our translations: FRE GER HUN
[My]1 spirit is too weak; mortality
Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,
And each imagined pinnacle and steep
Of godlike hardship tells me I must die,
Like a sick eagle looking towards the sky.
Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep,
That I have not the cloudy winds to keep
Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye.
Such dim-conceived glories of the brain
Bring round the heart an indescribable feud;
So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,
That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude
Wasting of old Time -- with a billowy main,
A sun, a shadow of a magnitude.
C. Ives sets lines 1-5
G. Bachlund sets lines 1-5
About the headline (FAQ)
View original text (without footnotes)
1 Ives: "The"
Text Authorship:
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Gary Bachlund (b. 1947), "Like a sick eagle", 1985, lines 1-5 [ medium voice and piano ], from Three Little Americana Songs, no. 3 [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Charles Edward Ives (1874 - 1954), "Like a sick eagle", 1920, published 1921, lines 1-5 [ voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Roger Guy Steptoe (b. 1953), "On seeing the Elgin Marbles", 1976, first performed 1978 [ tenor and piano ], from Five Songs for Tenor and Piano [sung text not yet checked]
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FRE French (Français) (Jean-Pierre Granger) , "En contemplant les marbres d'Elgin pour la première fois", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , "Beim ersten Sehen der Parthenon Friese", copyright © 2013, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- HUN Hungarian (Magyar) (Tamás Rédey) , copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [
Administrator]
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 14
Word count: 103
A lelkem oly bús – halandóságom
Language: Hungarian (Magyar) after the English
A lelkem oly bús – halandóságom
Lesújt, mint egy álom, óhatatlan,
S minden égi kín kimondhatatlan
Csúcsa, mélye súgja: meg kell halnom,
Mint egy égre vágyó gyönge sasnak.
Sovány vigasz, ha sírnom is lehet,
Hogy nem tartanak a felhős szelek
Frissen, míg szeme nyílik a napnak.
S ily agyban az alig-vélt glóriák
A szív körül vad viszályt szítanak;
S e csodák erős szédítése fáj:
Hogy vegyül a görög fenség az agg
Idő porával – s hullámverte ár –
Egy Nap – és egy Óriás-árny alatt.
About the headline (FAQ)
Translation of title "On seeing the Elgin Marbles for the first time" = "(Lord) Elgin márványai láttán"
Text Authorship:
- Translation from English to Hungarian (Magyar) copyright © 2015 by Tamás Rédey, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you may ask the copyright-holder(s) directly or ask us; we are authorized to grant permission on their behalf. Please provide the translator's name when contacting us.
Contact: licenses@email.lieder.example.net
Based on:
- a text in English by John Keats (1795 - 1821), "On seeing the Elgin Marbles for the first time"
This text was added to the website: 2015-01-20
Line count: 14
Word count: 85
