BEETHOVEN, a poem

Bust statue of Ludwig van Beethoven
by Hugo Hagen. Photographed in 1898.

HE cursed the day that he was born:
     And deaf and desolate,
Resolved, in bitterness forlorn,
     To end his hapless fate.

But as the deeper silence grew,—
     An exile from the throng,
His yearning spirit voices drew
     From inner founts of song;

And he who called unfriendly death
     To calm rebellious strife,
Won from his own despair the breath
     Of an immortal life.

"Beethoven" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Mine and Thine (1904) and Poems (1916) Volume I.