Anne Evans: Poems and Music With Memorial Preface by Anne Thackeray Ritchie |
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WORDS TO A “LIED OHNE WORTE.”
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 | Anne Evans: Poems and Music |  |
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WORDS TO A “LIED OHNE WORTE.”
Mendelssohn.
I'm a song that sing to myself,
Although I have no name;
And having lost one leg out of four
I do go rather lame.
Mister Mendelssohn-Bartholdy,
A remarkable man is he,
To drive a coach with one wheel off
So very pleasantly.
For there's something that jerks or jars—
You may hear it in all the bars;—
And perhaps it is he wrote me out,
Not minding what he was about,
At some old piano where certain keys were dumb,
And left out the notes he meant to put in,
Because they would not come.
(A fine idea, to leave out the notes,
Because the keys were dumb!)
Mister Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
Might be proud of a song like me;
And the reason why I have no words
I really do not see.
But I fancy, if the truth were known,
'Tis quite as well to go alone,
Escaping foreign words high-flown,
To speak the language all my own—
To speak the language fine and free
That is all composed of melody and harmony—
Although I have no name;
And having lost one leg out of four
I do go rather lame.
Mister Mendelssohn-Bartholdy,
A remarkable man is he,
To drive a coach with one wheel off
So very pleasantly.
For there's something that jerks or jars—
You may hear it in all the bars;—
And perhaps it is he wrote me out,
Not minding what he was about,
At some old piano where certain keys were dumb,
And left out the notes he meant to put in,
Because they would not come.
(A fine idea, to leave out the notes,
Because the keys were dumb!)
Mister Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
33
And the reason why I have no words
I really do not see.
But I fancy, if the truth were known,
'Tis quite as well to go alone,
Escaping foreign words high-flown,
To speak the language all my own—
To speak the language fine and free
That is all composed of melody and harmony—
Like beating with one hand and rubbing with the other while you're beating—so!
Ha! ha!
Ha! ha!
| Anne Evans: Poems and Music | |