Lyrics

from « Jane Eyre » by Charlotte Brontë (1847)

Do you think I am an automaton?
— a machine without feelings?
And can bear to be imprisoned? 
I am no bird; and no net ensnares me:
I am a free human being with an independent will,
which I now exert to leave you.

by Emily Brontë (1836)
 

I am the only being whose doom
No tongue would ask, no eye would mourn;
I never caused a thought of gloom,
A smile of joy, since I was born.

In secret pleasure, secret tears,
This changeful life has slipped away,
As friendless after eighteen years,
As lone as on my natal day.

There have been times I cannot hide,
There have been times when this was drear,
When my sad soul forgot its pride
And longed for one to love me here.

But those were in the early glow
Of feelings since subdued by care;
And they have died so long ago,
I hardly now believe they were.

​

First melted off the hope of youth,
Then fancy’s rainbow fast withdrew;
And then experience told me truth
In mortal bosoms never grew.

’Twas grief enough to think mankind
All hollow, servile, insincere;
But worse to trust to my own mind
And find the same corruption there.

by Emily Dickinson (1861)

Wild nights - Wild nights!
Were I with thee
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile - the winds -
To a Heart in port -
Done with the Compass -
Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden -
Ah - the Sea!
Might I but moor - tonight -
In thee!

von Ricardas Kiel (2025)

Hier ist es wie nirgendwo, hier gibt es ein Wäldchen mit Einhörnern, die Würste essen, das ist wie nirgendwo, hier gibt es einen Konsum, der klein ist und die Menschen sind lieb, hier gibt es Steine, auf denen wir uns küssen, deine zarte Hand in meiner, hier gibt es Platz für alles, also ist es wie überall, nein, es ist wie nirgendwo, denn ich bin hier und nirgends anders und du, wenn du hier bist, bist auch hier und nirgendwo anders, also kann es nur hier wie hier sein, weil nur hier wir über das gemähte Feldchen laufen, weil wir nur hier vom apfelbäckigen Verkäufer zwinkernd ermahnt werden, na, hier wird nicht geknutscht, weil diese Ermahnung uns normalisiert und somit schützt, weil nur hier über uns die Fledermäuse flattern, während wir auf den Steinen sitzen; zwei Wörter, die du hier gelernt hast: die Fledermaus, das Flattern

by Emily Dickinson (1861/62)

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

by Sappho (630 - 570 v.Chr.)
– translated by Anne Carson

I simply want to be dead.

Weeping she left me
with many tears and said this:
"Oh how badly things have turned out for us.
Sappho, I swear, against my will I leave you.“

And I answered her:
"Rejoice, go and
remember me.
For you know how we cherished you.

But if not, I want to remind you...
of the lovely things we shared:
… and on a soft bed
you loosened your longing
and you lifted the tunic
on your soft skin,
and I was filled with desire… 

by Amy Lowell
from « Sword Blades and Poppy Seeds » (1914)

Over the housetops,
Above the rotating chimney-pots,
I have seen a shiver of amethyst,
And blue and cinnamon have flickered
A moment,
At the far end of a dusty street.

Through sheeted rain
Has come a lustre of crimson,
And I have watched moonbeams
Hushed by a film of palest green.

It was her wings,
Goddess!
Who stepped over the clouds,
And laid her rainbow feathers
Aslant on the currents of the air.

​

I followed her for long,
With gazing eyes and stumbling feet.
I cared not where she led me,
My eyes were full of colours:

Saffrons, rubies, the yellows of beryls,
And the indigo-blue of quartz;
Flights of rose, layers of chrysoprase,
Points of orange, spirals of vermilion,
The spotted gold of tiger-lily petals,
The loud pink of bursting hydrangeas.

I followed,
And watched for the flashing of her wings.
In the city I found her,
The narrow-streeted city.
In the market-place I came upon her,
Bound and trembling.

Her fluted wings were fastened to her sides with cords,
She was naked and cold,
For that day the wind blew
Without sunshine.

Men chaffered for her,
They bargained in silver and gold,
In copper, in wheat,
And called their bids across the market-place.

The Goddess wept.
Hiding my face I fled,
And the grey wind hissed behind me,
Along the narrow streets.