[...] You ask about my Wieland? I am richer in schemes than in strength to carry them out. So I need a helper, yes, and more than a helper, an artistic bosom friend to carry it out just as I should like to—or better still it is to be hoped. I beg you to prevail upon Liszt to undertake the musical composition of Wieland for me. The poem [...], as I give it into your hands herewith, is the offspring of painfully and deeply felt inspiration, in the course of which I was driven to make discoveries upon which, as an artist, I believe I may congratulate myself. At present, however, it carries me back to a time—which I would rather not recall. I can do no more with the poem now, either in verse or in music, and were I ever to regain sufficient calm to do so, I fear I should also have lost interest in it. So I have lately accustomed myself to the idea of giving up the poem entirely.
Should this Wieland, however, have the power to inspire Liszt upon first acquaintance as he inspired me, I would ask him to look upon the work as his own property. My scheme is fully worked out; nothing remains to be done to it but the simple versification which any fairly skilful verse-maker could carry out; Liszt will easily find one. In the most important parts, the verse too has already poured out of me. I can no more at present—even the transcript cost me much distress.—[...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 189