Elfenlied
"Elfenlied" is the conventional title of a 1780 poem by Goethe, and of a later poem by Eduard Mörike.
Goethe's poem was written in 1780, in a letter sent to Charlotte von Stein, without a title, but introduced by Die Elfen sangen "the elves/fairies sang"; the title "Elfenlied" were only set in editions of Goethe's collected poems. Goethe's poem is Romantic, invoking the image of a fairy-dance under the impression of a moonlit night.
It was set to music many times, e.g. as "Elfenliedchen" by Julius Kniese , as "Elfensang" by Erich J. Wolff and as "Elfenlied" by Alexander Zemlinsky.
Mörike's poem was written at some point between 1826 and early 1828. It is humorous, its premise being a pun on Elf, the German word both for "elf" or "fairy" and "eleven":
It describes an Elfe awakened one hour early for the fairy-dance, at eleven o'clock instead of at midnight, due to mistaking the watchman's calling out of the eleventh hour for the calling of the "Elves" to the fairy-dance.
Still half-asleep, the Elf mistakes glow-worms sitting on a stone wall for the lit halls of the fairy-hall and, trying to look in, bashes his head against the stone.
The poem was set to music by Hugo Wolf in 1888.
Hugo Wolf also composed a separate choral piece called "Elfenlied", in this case an adaptation from words in Shakespeare's A [Midsummer Night's Dream].