And my dear Muse still stays afar? In silence I awaited her visit; with pleadings I would not disquiet her. For the Muse, like Love, beatifies but freely; woe to the fool, woe to the loveless, who fain would constrain what will not yield itself of its free will. They cannot be constrained; is it not so? Not so? How could Love be Muse withal, did it let itself be forced?
And my dear Muse stays far from me? —
Source: Richard Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonck, trans. William Ashton Ellis (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905), No. 50