At the shore | I sat at the shore and began to sing

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by Georg Scherer (1824 - 1909)

Translation © by Sharon Krebs

Am Strande

Language: German (Deutsch)

Our translations: CAT ENG NOR

Ich saß am Strand und hub an, dem Meer
Von deiner Schönheit zu singen,
Da lauschte der Wogen unendliches Heer,
Sie schwollen und stiegen und stürmten daher,
Als wollten das Land sie verschlingen.

Doch als ich den schäumenden Wogen erzählt,
Von deiner Falschheit und Tücke,
Die all mir dein lächelnder Zauber verhehlt,
Und wie du mein Herz dann zu Tode gequält --
Da wallten sie staunend [zurücke]¹.

Available sung texts: (what is this?)

• A. Berg

View original text (without footnotes)

Confirmed with Gedichte von Georg Scherer, vierte, vermehrte Auflage, Stuttgart, Leipzig, Berlin, Wien: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1894, page 75

¹ Berg: "zurück"

Text Authorship:

by Georg Scherer (1824 - 1909), "Am Strande", appears in Gedichte von Georg Scherer, in 1. Erstes Buch, in Lieder [author's text checked 1 time 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 Alban Maria Johannes Berg (1885 - 1935), "Am Strande", 1905 [ voice and piano ], from Jugendlieder, Vol. II (1904-08), no. 44 [sung text checked 1 time]
by Alphonse Maurice (1856 - 1905), "Am Strande", op. 36 (Sechs Lieder für 1 Singstimme mit Pianoforte) no. 1, published 1895 [ voice and piano ], Bremen, Praeger & Meier [sung text not yet checked]
by Anton Grigoryevich Rubinstein (1829 - 1894), "Am Strande", op. 115 (Zehn Lieder) no. 3 (1890), published 1890 [ voice and piano ], Leipzig, Senff [sung text not yet checked]

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

CAT Catalan (Català) (Manuel Capdevila i Font) , "A la platja", copyright © 2025, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
ENG English (Sharon Krebs) , "At the shore", copyright © 2017, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
NOR Norwegian (Bokmål) (Marianne Beate Kielland) , "På stranden", copyright © 2012, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Research team for this page: Virginia Knight , Sharon Krebs [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 10
Word count: 68

At the shore

Language: English after the German (Deutsch)

I sat at the shore and began to sing
To the sea of your beauty;
The endless host of waves listened,
They swelled and rose and stormed hither
As if they wanted to consume the land.

But when I told the foaming waves
Of your falsity and cunning,
All of which your smiling magic concealed from me,
And how you then tortured my heart to death --
At that, they surged back, amazed.

Text Authorship:

Translation from German (Deutsch) to English copyright © 2017 by Sharon Krebs, (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 German (Deutsch) by Georg Scherer (1824 - 1909), "Am Strande", appears in Gedichte von Georg Scherer, in 1. Erstes Buch, in Lieder
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2017-07-24
Line count: 10
Word count: 72