LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,103)
  • Text Authors (19,448)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,114)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

by Gottfried Keller (1819 - 1890)

Wir wähnten lange recht zu leben
Language: German (Deutsch) 
Wir wähnten lange recht zu leben,
doch fingen wir es töricht an;
die Tage ließen wir entschweben
und dachten nicht ans End' der Bahn!

Nun haben wir das Blatt gewendet
und frisch dem Tod ins Aug' geschaut;
kein ungewisses Ziel mehr blendet,
doch grüner scheint uns Busch und Kraut!

Und wärmer wird's in unsern Herzen,
es zeugt's der froh gewordne Mund;
doch unsern Liedern, unsern Scherzen
liegt auch des Scheidens Ernst zu Grund!

Text Authorship:

  • by Gottfried Keller (1819 - 1890) [author's text not yet checked 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 Othmar Schoeck (1886 - 1957), "Wir wähnten lange recht zu leben", op. 55 no. 13 (1941-3) [mezzo-soprano or baritone and piano], from Unter Sternen: Lieder und Gesänge nach Gedichten von Gottfried Keller, no. 13, Wien: Universal Edition [
     text verified 1 time
    ]

Researcher for this page: Caroline Diehl

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 12
Word count: 73

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris