Fur Elise

My poem of Elise, Beethoven's Fur Elise, if Elise had been a lady.  

Poems have been written to odes, specifically, Schiller's "Ode to Joy," to Beethoven's Ode, for example, and it is sung today around the holidays.  I chose piano pieces to write poems to.

A poem dedicated to a lady and a written lightly.  Fourth stanza represents the musical piece's 3rd page where sharp base chords play in forte.  A tone of imminent danger lurks in the music.  I put that into the picture as an imminent danger a lady can face.  Gainsborough's painting of Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan is used as a reference to a lady.   A lady dresses opposite of a barmaid, for example, in Renoir's A Bar at the Folies-Bergere.  A curvature in the lines soften Mrs. Sheridan's portrait, and light pastels on her dress signify her femininity, seated here on earth. 



Thomas Gainsborough's Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Fur Elise, My Lady

Sash she pins, and ribbon is bind, and when she glides in,

Air of grace, in about and strait-laced, prim and proper,

Slow to flow, she lolls in the parlor, sips a seltzer gelid,

 

 

Prose up and down in her lilt, she whispers,

Talks a prose that which is erudite, cultured like a prig,

Air of grace, in about and strait-laced, prim and proper,

 

 

Settled in her setée, fresh bud of roses in first of spring,

Stride before me in a gait that is light,

Talks a prose that which is erudite, cultured like a prig,

 

 

Politely, she leaves a smile, a gaze for a sight,

Heart of lily-white, she is pure,

Stride before me in a gait that is light,

 

 

Loves me sincerely and come after, close and true,

Take heed, she walks in a labyrinth of a meandering maze,

Heart of lily-white, she is pure,

 

 

Lupines in between hide in hefty hedges, she clears through maze,

Sash she pins, and ribbon is bind, and when she glides in,

Take heed, she walks in a labyrinth of a meandering maze,

Slow to flow, she lolls in the parlor, sips a seltzer gelid.