The Death of a Poet

The Death of a Poet

The day was July, 29 1856

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A hapless and sad figure lied exhausted on his bed.

The end was coming. The end was near.

The poet was dying and he was alone.

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End of agonies together with old glory. Works were done, Days gone. Night approaching, getting darker and darker. There were no stars, not even a bright spot.

The Sun had long set and the Moon had yet to come.

No one was there to witness the scene. No arms embraced his ailing clay. No hands grasped tenderly upon his. Not a single soul to bid him farewell.

The Poet’s love had deserted him and soon would his failing consciousness.

“Do not forsake me, do not forsake me!!” he once pleaded,

Yet, alone he laid, on his soon-to-be deathbed and he complained not.

“Ich grolle nicht, und wenn das Herz auch bricht, Ewig verlornes Lieb! ich grolle nicht”

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There sat only the mourning nightingales, quietly watching their poetic herald trembling in pains.

Though Music and poems circulated in his inactive vein, he uttered not a single word, hummed not a single tune. There were no hope and he simply must go.

Was the poet embittered?

No, he was glad.

It was soon to be over and He struggled not.

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‘Come what may the fate’ he once thought ‘for I know not what will become of me’. His mind was chaotic, his mental state was disordered.

How long had he laid here? When was the last meal?

He recalled none.

Even the times, it seemed, had abandoned him.

But there is something he regretted not of having lost. His reason, perhaps?

Indeed.

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How long have I been living without reason? Wondering the poet –

Is it fatal like living without soul?

No, he thought not.

For what do I care? What is the world, or even that reason, worth to me?

Once in his youth, he was so full of hopes and loves. He despised and cherished.

He perceived goodness and charms. In Fate he hoped, in God he believed. The innocent youth was blooming in him. The mass people, he let himself freely flow along.

But it was not long before a fateful crisis originated, when his real joy ceased, his genius creativity started. There were no major crises aroused. The depression just took hold of him unconsciously. All the miseries quietly struck him. Since he saw not what he sought. He’d tried and failed to penetrate the Universe and reach the infinite. He, instead, found the goal he craved unattainable and himself impervious. He perceived that truth lied and honesty could deceive. He tried to acquaint everyone but letting no one get a glimpse of his mysterious soul. He yearned for intimacy while quietly isolating himself. He even hoped in desperation itself. Then, this miserable youth started into a life-long trembling and suffering.

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The world, he found out, was too imperfect for his spirit. The people oppressed him, the nature appeared unsatisfied. Any beauties ceased to attract his favor. Interests were ceded, matters unconcerned. The world was to him, hence, but a melancholy place too desperate and exhaustive to live in.

Even the music enraged him, for there was no longer any instrument that was variable enough to contain his musical ideas.

The threatening insanity spread itself in his susceptible youth like a menacing disease aiming brutally to stop his blooming young heart. The fatal incident grew like some ugly weeds in a nourishing garden. They stretched out wide and firm that one might wonder, had it been flowers instead of these weeds, how beautiful the garden would be.

The haunting thought of becoming mad was so intimidating that the melancholy got worse of him. It was already beyond help. The poet, inevitably, gave up in despair. But in the same times, the madness--as much as he dreaded--compelled him. For it opened the gate to many wildest fancies. One merit the disease did bring along, however, when coupled with passion, was a genuine creativity of exquisite works

He then turned dissenting, became withdrawn and therefore, ejected himself entirely from the reality. He soon found himself alone -- Isolated and unreachable--.He only poured out his inexpressible nostalgia to the trees and made dreamy questions to the stars, his true friends.

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The acute pain had come up anew, the poet let out a groan and sighed. He looked upon his pale hands. There, he reminisced, on his paralytic finger, used to be a ring, a wedding ring.

Where had it gone then? This he couldn’t recall. But he did realize one thing that he had, after all, been married. He had got a wife.

But what was of his wife?

The beloved of his heart, the inspiration of his soul, He was trying to recollect her.

The bound between them was, at one time, so strong.

Once he needed absolutely nothing but his inseparable piano and her dearest presence. She, in turn, devoted her life and her art entirely to his.

However, when the creeping disease has, by the time, consummated his feeble soul, contaminated his sensitive art, the weakening line between them two broke at last.

Her ravishing charms then cease to captivate his spirit. Her ardent passion could not inspire him anymore, just as the world and all those beauties could not before. The obsession has already, therefore, begun in his fancy. Completely lost was he in his own imaginations that she lost her existence in his.

The last time he saw her, he scarcely knew when for his frail memory was so fragmentary. There seemed to be some children, yes, his children. What about them?

He thought in bewilderment—“Do I not have some children too?”

He hardly remembered their faces, let alone their names.

Poor fellows! There were seven of them and he recognized not one. Worst still, the last child never saw its father.

Out of his collapsing mind, the only thing he could sadly be certain was that they were soon to be -- fatherless.

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The wind flapped pitilessly upon the window, not only increasing the interminable noise on his head but also causing the fragile lilies to be ruined. The poet’s face bent daringly to confront the humid air. He breathed long and deep, consumed all his might, fearing least it would be one last time

Instantaneously, certain sensations emerged in his mind with a fading-out vision;

The feeling of falling freely into the black hole ahead and,

The heaviness of the freezing liquid substance above

Ah, remembered he coldly, that must be when he did attempt suicide by drowning himself in the Rhine. He remember casting his wedding ring and throwing himself after it into the freezing river ahead. There, deep in the holy river which had once been set as a theme on one of his symphonies, must bury his marital ring.

Unfortunately, some stupid creatures rescued him and took him home. If not, regretted he, he would have died heroically instead of discovering himself -- here-- in a mental asylum, the very next day, and now, on this deathbed which he laid. They believed him losing reason, his hallucination becoming incurable.

But how could one hallucinate?

Or to be precise, how could one be so sure of one’s reality?

He, himself, was certain of his coming answer.

-- I’m perfectly conscious of my own world -- I do not just believe.—and they call it insanity.

Man can live in separate realities. One can be a deceiving illusion consisted of persistent lies. The other might not, surprisingly, be different. The majority of souls certainly live in a united reality. The more the inhabitants, the less they realize.

They were sure that he was mad. The poet was firm in his certainty. He’s never felt so free in his life as he was now. His soul untied. The music inside him broke loose.

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But the pains have arisen bitterly again before he could recollect more.

Still, reflected the poet gravely, he was dying and he was grateful.

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The air turned damp and cold for the Death has crept in.

Body then cooled, breaths fainted. His poor heart, warm and kind, as it was, beat slower and slower. His crippled fingers were shaking, his mouth, quivering-- as if wanted to address something.

Yet no sound was produced. The long-awaited last breath quietly went out.

The end was there, freshly and soundlessly. The tormented heart thus stopped. The clock struck at 16.00 in the afternoon, not a second more before the romantic poet has gone.

His eyes closed. His soul departed. His tears dried. His life spent. His spirit floated.

The Nature, resenting losing the history’s romantic hero, calmly did its duty.

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There fell the silence he long needed and he died alone.

The nightingales sang not a song. They all fell shut.

The poet was dead. His poor soul, at last set free,

The love he once cherished and yet, he died alone.

The requiem was being played in his honor, but the sound was distant, stiff and hardly audible. Even the flowers on his little window turn their blooms off him. Why was it thus?

Did they not want to witness this painful scene either?

No, they hid tears. The fresh tears that were running down theirs desolated leaves.

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It was darker still. The thick fogs concealed the sight.

Yet a lifeless figure lied stiff in the obscurity. For so genius and noble a man, no more daylight will ever shine upon.

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Hands landed smoothly on his chest. Hairs scattered around his forehead. His face clam and close. His decayed body rested.

The agonies have long passed. The suffering’s all gone. The pains relieved. The “La” had disappeared. The madness was, then, finally over.

Alone he died…

Denied and defeated.

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The sorrowful angels gathered around weeping. The nightingales, so long muted, poured out their grief mournfully.

“The poet has died…forsaken and forespent” They sang.

“The tender Eusebius has left the Earth, so as the gallant Florestan.

The Philistines would celebrate. The darkness would mourn”

But what’s of the World?

Alas,

The world will never mourn for he who lived and left this earth like any other. A corpse is a corpse. People didn’t shed tears. They never do.

For his music, eccentric and incomprehensible, they cared not. All his arts suffered the same fate: irrelevant.

For he who had shed tears for many others had now belonged to the grave, they still never do.

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But then, abruptly, as if when the Universe was created, “the light there shall be”

His soul lighted. His white wings spread. His feet sprang off the ground. The room emptied.

The poet finally took flight.

Revived the passionate master, recommenced his long-lost merry childhood,

Began his eternal dream, awake his glorious fancy!

Eusebius and Florestan were to be forever united. The Davidbunds marches their triumph, the enemies surrendered at their feet. The enchanted muses rejoice as the angels have taken their master.

Henceforth, alone he never and ever shall be.

For he’s taken journey to an endless life with imperishable love in an everlasting, peaceful rest,

That is Heaven where his passionate and noble soul shall live.

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It has all become pitch dark. Blackened black swallowed everything. The silence fell again.

The soothed nightingales grin at the occupied less bed.

Indeed, he’s taken flight. But what was thus left?

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Then happened a bewitching sound, so familiar and beautiful a tune, remarked the nightingales. Could it be the same old song? So wholeheartedly they sang along.

The master’s music was played, his art demonstrated.

Impassioned and resonated…The music celebrated the undying glory of its creator.

The artists were speechless, the poets were moved.

As if the mysteries disclosed and the world, at last, understood.

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The nightingales were searching delightfully for what that was left; any treasure from his poetic heart, his genius head.

The emptied room was too dark,

But how come the vision was so clear, wondered those birds.

And why then, could they perceive this truth so vividly??

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There, his life was defeated and his love denied.

But his music lasts forevermore.

The World, enchanted, shall celebrate.

The people will be remembering his name with love,

The great romantic hero,

Robert Schumann.

A Schumann Encounter:

I fancy having met Robert Schumann.

I grasped his dear hands and put them into mine,

While I was piercing through his heart, intensely, I gazed on his blue eyes,

kissed them did I, and all that I ‘ver wished was done.