Wanderer's Nightsong

Written in 1776 ("Der du von dem Himmel bist") and in 1780 ("Über allen Gipfeln"), they are among Goethe's most famous works.

[2] Franz Schubert set the poem to music in 1815 (as No.3 in his Op.4, D.224), changing "stillest" and "füllest" to "stillst" and "füllst," and, more significantly, "Erquickung" (refreshment) to "Entzückung" (delight).

[3] Goethe probably wrote it on the evening of September 6, 1780, onto the wall of a wooden gamekeeper lodge on top of the Kickelhahn mountain near Ilmenau where he, according to a letter to Charlotte von Stein, spent the night.

Parodies of "Nachtlied II" were written by Christian Morgenstern ("Fisches Nachtgesang"), Joachim Ringelnatz ("Abendgebet einer erkälteten Negerin", lines 17–20), Karl Kraus ("Wanderers Schlachtlied" from The Last Days of Mankind), and Bertolt Brecht ("Liturgie vom Hauch").

A computational linguistics processing of the poem was the topic of the 1968 radio drama Die Maschine by Georges Perec and Eugen Helmlé [de].

[6] It is also cited in Daniel Kehlmann's 2005 novel Measuring the World,[7] in Milan Kundera's novel Immortality,[citation needed] and in Walter Moers' novel The City of Dreaming Books.

[citation needed] John Ottman's musical score for Bryan Singer's 2008 film Valkyrie contains a requiem-like piece for soprano and chorus in the closing credits with "Nachtlied II" as lyrics.