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Title: To Nannette Falk-Auerbach
Author: Sidney Lanier [
More Titles by Lanier]
To Nannette Falk-Auerbach [1]
Oft as I hear thee, wrapt in heavenly art,
The massive message of Beethoven tell
With thy ten fingers to the people's heart
As if ten tongues told news of heaven and hell, --
Gazing on thee, I mark that not alone,
Ah, not alone, thou sittest: there, by thee,
Beethoven's self, dear living lord of tone,
Doth stand and smile upon thy mastery.
Full fain and fatherly his great eyes glow:
He says, "From Heaven, my child, I heard thee call
(For, where an artist plays, the sky is low):
Yea, since my lonesome life did lack love's all,
In death, God gives me thee: thus, quit of pain,
Daughter, Nannette! in thee I live again."
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Baltimore, 1878.
Note 1:
This sonnet was originally written in the German and published
in a German daily of Baltimore, while the author's translation
appeared at the same time in the Baltimore `Gazette'.
-THE END-
Sidney Lanier's poem: To Nannette Falk-Auerbach
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