Pour Mlle Marie - ‘Adieu’
Oh my darling Maria
I so long to see you
But how long must it be
This so long from me.
With your mama’s consent
To your father I went
With plans soon to wed
But we part now instead.
Though so perfectly matched
I was quickly despatched
Sent away with myself
On account of my health.
So we old friends from youth
Simply must face the truth
A love once so sublime
Is to history consigned
So farewell must it be
To my love lost to me
With a waltz just for you
I must give my ‘adieu’.

- Category: Poetry
9 comments add one below
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Neville Hunt over 2 years ago
Fred Chopin adored his beautiful childhood family friend Maria Wodzinska. It was mutual and they became engaged. Until that is her father forbad the match on account of Chopin’s poor health. They were forced to part and as a parting gift and memento, he composed his Waltz in A-flat Major (Op 69), named ‘Adieu” (goodbye). A lovely gesture... I only wish I could write lovely music...
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Neville Hunt over 2 years ago
...this poem though is still work in progress, and might well be revised.
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Jamie Clapperton over 2 years ago
poignant and sweet . Read it to my Mum and enjoyed it too.
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Neville Hunt over 2 years ago
Thanks Jamie, glad you both enjoyed it. I found the true story so poignant and absolutely loved the fact that he wrote it for his Maria. It’s a lovely piece too. I just write the odd poem to my wife as my musicality doesn’t stretch as far as musical composition 🥴 Quite a lot of composers have written for and dedicated to their wives, which I find very moving. One other such, Weber, wrote the wonderful Invitation to the Dance, a fabulous piece, for Mrs Von W. And Maria Wodzinska was a water-colourist and painted an apparently excellent likeness of Fred of and for him... as well as being accomplished at the keyboard.
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Christopher over 2 years ago
A lovely poem, Neville. And it's never too late to start writing music. I've been writing since I was 12 when I started playing guitar (rock-n-roll, obviously, not classical pieces). Do you play any instrument? If not, it's never too late to learn that either.
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VerityAlways over 2 years ago
Very poignant, a perfect and lovely piece, Neville!
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Neville Hunt over 2 years ago
Thanks Christopher and Verity. The waltz was played recently on a classical music station here and the presenter mentioned that Chopin had written the piece for his former fiancée as an adieu. This moved me and prompted a quick Google search, the result of which seemed to me to demand a poem from me for some reason.
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Brian Mackinney over 2 years ago
There’s a park in Warsaw where the benches play Chopin’s music.
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Neville Hunt over 2 years ago
That’s very interesting, Brian; I didn’t know that. I’ve travelled extensively in Eastern Europe, but not to Warsaw, only Krakow for my younger son’s stag weekend, where the music wasn’t exactly from Chopin!
