Schubert's only setting of a poem by Heinrich von Collin, Leiden der Trennung (The Sorrow of Separation) (D. 509) from late 1816 reads like a précis of Die schöne Müllerin (The Miller's Beautiful Daughter) from 1823. In both, water is seen as both an agent of life and of death and in both the protagonist ends literally dead in the water. In the case of Leiden der Trennung, however, the protagonist is a wave rather than a person and the poem is more a metaphor for the human condition than a story about a young man who dies of unrequited love. Aside from these literary concerns, however, Leiden der Trennung is a small-scale song of gentle loss and calm sorrow. The vocal melody is tenderly contoured to the harmonic changes; the harmonic changes are mild shifts around the fundamental minor tonality; and the whole song is a kindhearted view of life and death rather than Sturm und Drang of Die schöne Müllerin.

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