Beim Schlafengehen by Richard Strauss

This is the most beautiful and poignant - at least to me - of the Four Last Songs. The poem by Hermann Hesse deals with death but is so comforting:
Now that the day has made me so tired,
my dearest longings shall
be accepted kindly by the starry night
like a weary child.

Hands, cease your activity,
head, forget all of your thoughts;
all my senses now
will sink into slumber.

And my soul, unobserved,
will float about on untrammeled wings
in the enchanted circle of the night,
living a thousandfold more deeply.

The version by Jessye Norman is transcendent. Thank you all so much for doing this. You made life a little more bearable on 9/11 and I know you'll do the same on this anniversary.

Louise from NJ