“As to the great poem which I have still to write, I often have the
feeling that it will come one day, but not by doing nothing. A
day of rest is nearly a misfortune to me. I have at once the feeling
of being unable to work. It is quite childish! I feel as if I were
drifting into the sea, into infinite space in deepest melancholy, and
could not find any firm footing! Just try how you feel when you have
not written anything for two days. Certainly I have not yet composed a
Nausikaa, and cannot rest on my laurels, but am constantly incited by
the feeling of not having done anything yet.”
Most of the works of the Queen are already translated into various
languages, or are being translated. Many of her poems have also been
set to music.
Augustus Bungert, the poet and composer of Tetralogy, the World of
Homer, Nausikaa, the Return of Odysseus, &c., has edited the finest
poems from “The Witch,” “My Rest,” and “Songs of the Artisans,” and
called them “Poems of a Queen;” as well as “My Rhine,” “Dramas in
Songs,” “Kalafat,” &c. Hallström, Reinecke, Gounod, and Madame Augusta
Holmès in Paris have arranged Carmen Sylva’s poems as songs.
Before the year comes to an end the ever-restlessly working imagination
of the royal poetess will have created new works which we are unable to
mention here.
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