I first encountered the word Sehnsucht many years ago, in a song by Tchaikovsky, a setting of a poem by Goethe. The song was sung by Rossano Brazzi's character in the movie Little Women. I hardly remember the rest of the movie, but that song enchanted me.
Here are Goethe's words:
Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt
Weiß, was ich leide!
Allein und abgetrennt
Von aller Freude,
Seh ich ans Firmament
Nach jener Seite.
Ach! der mich liebt und kennt,
Ist in der Weite.
Es schwindelt mir, es brennt
Mein Eingeweide.
Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt
Weiß, was ich leide!
Source: Wikipedia.
Wiki also provides this translation:
Only one who knows this longing
Understands what I suffer!
Alone and separated
From all joy,
I look to the vast horizon
On every side.
Oh! He who loves and knows me,
Is far away.
I feel dizzy, and it burns
my insides.
Only one who knows this longing
Understands what I suffer!
(Yes, I know. It sounds much better in German.)
Browsing Rattle's site last night, I came across another poem. It was written by David Lee Garrison, and it can be found here at Rattle's blog. You'll have to scroll down a bit to find the poem. It's called Bach in the DC Subway.
Do you remember the story? The violinist in the subway was Joshua Bell. Click here for the Washington Post's coverage of the event, with video.
One line of the poem brought me to tears. Garrison says
"all the children,
all of them,
waded into the music
as if it were water"
Wouldn't it be wonderful to rediscover the openness that children have, that allows them to accept the incursion of the extraordinary - of magic - into their lives as their due? Wouldn't you love to wade into music as if it were water, without needing to analyze its components or think about it at all?
I'm there again, in that longing state. I'm suffering from Sehnsucht. I want to push aside the layers of age and fatigue and habit and insecurity that, for the most part, keep me walking the straight and narrow. I want to find fairies in the garden, hear the voice of the stream, use my superhuman powers to save the world. There was a time when I could do all that, wasn't there?
