Songs of the Death of Children (Kindertotenlieder)

Since the loss of you, I’ve learned to live for each day And take it as a blessing, Knowing it may not always be this ...

And thou art dead, as young and fair  As aught of mortal birth;  And forms so soft and charms so rare  Too soon return’d to ...

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife. Nature I loved and, next to Nature, Art: I warm‘d both hands before the fire ...

Son, I wish I could wake up and see you standing there. Then I would know that it was just a nightmare. Son, I remember ...

Shall I wither and fall like an autumn leaf, From this deep sorrow – from this painful grief? How can I go on or find ...

If I should go before the rest of you Break not a flower nor inscribe a stone Nor when I’m gone speak in a Sunday ...

A light went out on Earth for me The day we said goodbye And on that day a star was born, The brightest in the ...

And when the stream that overflows has passed,A consciousness remains upon the silent shore of memory;Images and precious thoughts that shall not beAnd cannot be ...

When great trees fall, rocks on distant hills shudder, lions hunker down in tall grasses, and even elephants lumber after safety. When great trees fall ...

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand ...

We are here to celebrate your life And the measure of its worth And every single life you touched While you were on this earth. ...

Life can never stay the same No matter how we try Our hands can never stop The clock of life from ticking by But love ...

Remember the time you lent me your car and I dented it? I thought you’d kill me… But you didn’t. Remember the time I forgot ...

It’s never the right time To say goodbye. I will miss you, Dad, And here is why. You taught me so much: To show no ...

O soft embalmer of the still midnight, Shutting, with careful Fingers and benign, Our gloom-pleas‘d eyes, Embower‘d from the light, Enshaded in forgetfulness divine: O ...