This fate of the musician and the cricket has the same fundamental idea
as the prefatory stanzas, the power of love to soften what is gruff and
brighten what is somber in life.
64. _Music's son._ Goethe. The "Lotte" of the next line, the heroine of
Goethe's _Sorrows of Werther_, was modeled in part on Charlotte Buff,
with whom Goethe was at one time in love.