Das Mädchen (The Maiden) (D. 652) is the only one of Schubert's settings of the poems of Friedrich Schlegel to deal with the subject of romantic love. Die Rose (The Rose) and Der Schmetterling (The Butterfly) dealt with what might be called sexual love, and Fülle der Liebe (The Abundance of Love) dealt with spiritual love, but only in Das Mädchen does Schubert turn to romantic love. Needless to say, romantic love means unhappy love: the maiden of the song's title is surely unhappy, for despite his apparent devotion, her beloved's love is not innig, a word which could be translated as ardent, intimate, or inward.

Schubert's setting is a masterpiece of unhappy love. Throughout the song, Schubert is continually turning the major to the minor, that is, turning joy to sorrow. As early as the third beat of the first bar, Schubert has turned the tonic major into the tonic minor, a move that is the harmonic quintessence of the whole song. In both outer verses, the opening lines are set in the tonic major while the closing lines are set in the tonic minor. And even when the closing lines of the outer verses conclude in the relative major of the tonic minor, the cadence which ends the verses is a sorrowful plagal cadence with the subdominant in the minor.

Schubert's vocal melody is similarly a masterpiece of sympathetic writing. Proceeding in short sighs, drooping phrases of paired triplets and duplets lasting only a bar apiece, the outer verses portray the maiden of the title as sadly shy. But in the central verse, Schubert gives the maiden a melody which takes wing in a long cantilena that soars to the highest note of the piece for the phrase "If the power of music were granted me, my feelings would pour out in harmonies, for they live in music." But this exalted cantilena does not last, and the piano gently brings the singer back to her sorrowful love.

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