Oh you men who think or say that I am
malevolent, stubborn,
or misanthropic,
how greatly do you wrong me....
Three miles from my adopted city
lies a village where I came to peace.
The world there was a calm place,
even the great Danube no more
than a pale ribbon tossed onto the
landscape
by a girl's careless hand.
Into this stillness
I had been ordered to recover.
The hills were gold with late summer;
my rooms were two,
plus a small kitchen,
situated upstairs in the back
of a cottage
at the end of the Herrengasse.
From my window I could see
onto the courtyard
where a linden tree twined skyward —
leafy umbilicus canted toward light,
warped in the very act of yearning —
and I would feed on the sun
as if that alone
would dismantle the silence around me.
At first I raged.Then music raged in me,
rising so swiftly
I could not write quickly enough
to ease the roiling. I would stop
to light a lamp,
and whatever I'd missed —
larks flying to nest,
church bells, the shepherd's
home-toward-evening song rushed in,
and I would rage again.
I am by nature a conflagration;
I would rather leap
than sit and be looked at.
So when my proud city spread
her gypsy skirts, I reentered,
burning towards her greater,
constant light.
Call me rough, ill-tempered,
slovenly— I tell you,
every tenderness I have ever known
has been nothing
but thwarted violence, an ache
so permanent and deep,
the lightest touch
awakens it...It is impossible
to care enough. I have returned
with a second Symphony
and 15 Piano Variations
which I've named Prometheus,
after the rogue Titan,
the half-a-god who knew
the worst sin is to take
what cannot be given back.
I smile and bow, and the world is loud.
And though I dare not lean in to shout
Can't you see that I'm deaf? —
I also cannot stop listening.
Ludwig Van Beethoven 12.16.1770 - 3.26.1827
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