Prayer | Lord, you know my misery!

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by Maurice Maeterlinck (1862 - 1949)

Translation © by Sophie Huet

Oraison

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: ENG NOR

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.

Text Authorship:

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

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 Thomas Oboe Lee (b. 1945), "Oraison" [ voice and piano ], from Chansons de Maeterlinck, no. 4 [sung text not yet checked]
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
NOR Norwegian (Bokmål) (Marianne Beate Kielland) , "Bønn", copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 12
Word count: 62

Prayer

Language: English after the French (Français)

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.

Text 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@email.lieder.example.net

Based on:

a text in French (Français) by Maurice Maeterlinck (1862 - 1949), "Oraison", appears in Serres chaudes, Paris, Éd. Léon Vanier, first published 1889
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2009-04-15
Line count: 12
Word count: 65