Oraison

Vous savez, Seigneur, ma misère ! 
Voyez ce que je vous apporte !
Des fleurs mauvaises de la terre,
Et du soleil sur une morte.

Voyez aussi ma lassitude,
La lune éteinte et l'aube noire ;
Et fécondez ma solitude
En l'arrosant de votre gloire.

Ouvrez-moi, Seigneur, votre voie,
Éclairez mon âme lasse,
Car la tristesse de ma joie
Semble de l'herbe sous la glace.

Translation(s): ENG

List of language codes

Submitted by Emily Ezust [Administrator]

Authorship

• by Maurice Maeterlinck (1862 - 1949), "Oraison", appears in Serres chaudes, Paris, Éd. Léon Vanier, first published 1889 [ author's text checked 1 time]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

• by Ernest Amédée Chausson (1855 - 1899), "Oraison", op. 24 no. 5 (1895) [high voice and piano], from Serres Chaudes, no. 5. [ sung text checked 1 time]
• by Alberto Nepomuceno (1864 - 1920), "Oraison", op. 11 no. 2 (1894) [voice and piano], Rio de Janeiro: Vieira Machado [ sung text checked 1 time]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

• ENG English (Sophie Huet) , "Prayer", copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Text added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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Prayer

Lord, you know my misery!
See what I bring you -- 
Evil flowers from the earth
And the sun on a woman's corpse... 

See also my torpor,
The missing moon and black dawn;
Bring my solitude to life
By watering it with Your glory. 

Lord, show me the way,
Shine upon my weak soul
For the sadness of my joy seems
But grass beneath the ice.

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Authorship

• Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2009 by Sophie Huet, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you must ask the copyright-holder(s) directly for permission. If you receive no response, you must consider it a refusal.
  
  Sophie Huet. Contact:
  <sophiehuet (AT) gmail (DOT) com>
  
  
  If you wish to commission a new translation, please contact:
  
  (licenses at lieder dot net)
  
  
  
  

• a text in French (Français) by Maurice Maeterlinck (1862 - 1949), "Oraison", appears in Serres chaudes, Paris, Éd. Léon Vanier, first published 1889
• This text was set to music by the following composer(s): Ernest Amédée Chausson, Alberto Nepomuceno. Go to the text.

Text added to the website: 2009-04-15 00:00:00.
Last modified: 2014-06-16 10:03:11
Line count: 12
Word count: 65