Out Of My Own Great Woe I

Sleep Is Lovely, Death Is Better Still, Not To Have Been Born Is Of Course The Miracle.

Immortality—dazzling Idea! Who First Imagined Thee! Was It Some Jolly Burgher Of Nuremburg, Who With Night-cap On His Head, And White Clay Pipe In Mouth, Sat On Some Pleasant Summer Evening Before His Door, And Reflected In All His Comfort, That It Would Be Right Pleasant, If, With Unextinguishable Pipe, And Endless Breath, He Could Thus Vegetate Onwards For A Blessed Eternity? Or Was It A Lover, Who In The Arms Of His Loved One, Thought The Immortality-thought, And That Because He Could Think And Feel Naught Beside!—love! Immortality!

Nothing Is Sillier Than This Charge Of Plagiarism. There Is No Sixth Commandment In Art. The Poet Dare Help Himself Wherever He Lists, Wherever He Finds Material Suited To His Work. He May Even Appropriate Entire Columns With Their Carved Capitals, If The Temple He Thus Supports Be A Beautiful One. Goethe Understood This Very Well, And So Did Shakespeare Before Him.

In Blissful Dream, In Silent Night, There Came To Me, With Magic Might, With Magic Might, My Own Sweet Love, Into My Little Room Above.

Nothing Is More Futile Than Theorizing About Music. No Doubt There Are Laws, Mathematically Strict Laws, But These Laws Are Not Music; They Are Only Its Conditions? The Essence Of Music Is Revelation.