Beside a river, in a spell
Of utter silence, there am I.
Alone I sit within a cell:
The midnight hours are passing by ...
I gaze into the distance, staying
Focused on night's formlessness;
The heart is begging to be praying --
In holy calm, how effortless!
All problems seem so far from me;
The world seem foreign and unreal.
Up in the heavens, You I see;
Within my heart, deep peace I feel.
Though a world of increasing deafness shattered Beethoven's dreams of success in the outer world of society, it also caused him to turn within. And while human relationships came and went, Beethoven was discovering God, the eternal companion. This reorientation of his soul may well be the primary reason for the higher level of composition in his second period creations ... stemming from a fundamental need to express through music new and deeper worlds of soul-experience. Whereas before he composed for himself, in his second period, Beethoven was consciously striving to become the musical servant of God.