Cloudy night | Night, your veil of magic

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by Ferdinand Avenarius (1856 - 1923)

Translation © by Sharon Krebs

Wolkennacht

Language: German (Deutsch)

Our translations: ENG

Nacht, dein Zauberschleier
Webt um meinen Sinn,
Daß ich weltenweit entrückt
Von der Erde bin.

In den Wolkenfluten,
Wie das wogt und gärt!
Wie wenn dumpf sich eine Welt
Aus dem Nichts gebärt.

Und es will sich trennen,
Und vom Schlafe schwer
Tauchen dunkle Lande stumm
Traumhaft aus dem Meer.

Schneegebirge wachsen
Strahlend drüber auf,
Und die Märchensonne schwebt,
Und der Mond schwebt auf.

Confirmed with Ferdinand Avenarius, Stimmen und Bilder. Neue Gedichte, Florenz und Leipzig: bei Eugen Diederichs, 1898, page 29.

Text Authorship:

by Ferdinand Avenarius (1856 - 1923), "Wolkennacht", appears in Stimmen und Bilder, in Jahrbuch, in Mondbilder, no. 4 [author's text checked 2 times 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 Anton von Webern (1883 - 1945), "Wolkennacht", 1900. [voice and piano] [ sung text checked 1 time]

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

ENG English (Sharon Krebs) , "Cloudy night", copyright © 2017, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Sharon Krebs [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2009-09-07
Line count: 16
Word count: 64

Cloudy night

Language: English after the German (Deutsch)

Night, your veil of magic
Weaves about my spirit,
So that I am transported worlds away
From the earth.

In the sea of clouds,
How it surges and seethes!
As when a world is dully
Born from nothingness.

And it wishes to separate itself out,
And heavy with sleep,
Dark continents rise mutely,
Dreamily from the sea.

Snowy mountains grow
Radiantly up over it,
And the fairy-tale sun hovers,
And the moon floats upward.

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 Ferdinand Avenarius (1856 - 1923), "Wolkennacht", appears in Stimmen und Bilder, in Jahrbuch, in Mondbilder, no. 4
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2017-08-31
Line count: 16
Word count: 74