“His mouth has said to me:
I love thee.”
The melody softens, the phrase is more free and becomes freshly animated on the words, “A dream bewilders me,” then bursts out powerfully when the young girl exclaims:
“O Heaven! if this is but a dream,
Then may I wake no more.”
This phrase, by its lofty accent and a certain lyric transport, pleasantly recalls certain movements of Gluck’s.
When, in a low voice, the maiden resumes, “Why tremble thus,” etc., we might think the melody terminated. But the artist has kept us a few last notes, breathed from the depths of his soul. After an eager repetition of the words, “Me has he chosen among all, and thou, my heart, believ’st it not,” she once more utters them, very slowly and very softly, in a melodic phrase full of tenderness and supplication. She is more calm; her heart belies her mouth, and she believes.
The fourth and fifth Lieder are two songs of an affianced maiden. The young girl at first sings to herself of her betrothed, and the sentiment of the music is inward, tranquil, and deep; but on quitting her father’s roof to meet her husband the fiancée sings to her sisters, with
a youthful pride and gladness, “If I am fair, I owe it only to my happiness,” and the melody breaks into a song of exceeding beauty.
A wife, she murmurs soon into her husband’s ear, “I hope,” and in the following Lied we see her as a mother. She presses her little one to her heart, and a melody of exquisite sweetness expresses the words: