Clair de lune

Jadis, aux jours du Feu, quand la Terre, en hurlant,
[Roulait]1 son bloc fluide à travers le ciel blanc,
Elle enfla par degrés sa courbe originelle,
Puis, dans un vaste effort, creva ses flancs ignés,
Et lança, vers le flux des mondes déjà nés,
La Lune qui germait en elle.

Alors, dans la splendeur des siècles éclatants,
Sans relâche, sans fin, à toute heure du temps,
La mère, ivre d'amour, contemplait dans sa force
L'astre enfant qui courait comme un jeune soleil:
Il flambait. Un froid vint l'engourdir de sommeil 
Et pétrifia son écorce.

Puis, ce fut l'âge blond des tiédeurs et des vents:
La Lune se peupla de murmures vivants;
Elle eut des mers sans fond et des fleuves sans nombre,
Des troupeaux, des cités, des pleurs, des cris joyeux;
Elle eut l'amour; elle eut ses arts, ses lois, ses dieux,
Et, lentement, rentra dans l'ombre.

Depuis, rien ne sent plus son baiser jeune et chaud;
La Terre qui vieillit la cherche encor là-haut:
Tout est nu. Mais, le soir, passe un globe éphémère,
Et l'on dirait, à voir sa forme errer sans bruit,
L'âme d'un enfant mort qui reviendrait la nuit
Pour regarder dormir sa mère.

Translation(s): ENG GER

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View original text (without footnotes)

Confirmed with Edmond Haraucourt: L'Ame Nue, Paris, G. Charpentier et Cie, éditeurs, 1885, pages 25-26.

Authorship

• by Edmond Haraucourt (1856 - 1941), "Clair de lune", subtitle: "a Émile Guiter", appears in L'âme nue, in 1. La vie extérieure, in 1. Les lois [ 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 Charles Koechlin (1867 - 1950), "Clair de lune", op. 7 (Quatre Poèmes d'E Haraucourt) no. 1 (1890), orchestrated 1894. [ sung text verified 1 time]

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

• ENG English (Faith J. Cormier) , "Moonlight", copyright © 2001, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
• GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , "Mondlicht", copyright © 2004, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

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

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Moonlight

 Long ago, in the days of fire, when the Earth cried out
 as it threw its fluid blocks through the white sky,
 slowly swelling her original curves
 and, in a great effort, split her fiery flanks
 and hurled, toward the flux of worlds already born,
 the Moon that grew within her.
 
 Then in the splendor of brilliant centuries,
 tirelessly, endlessly, eternally, 
 the mother, drunk with love, contemplated in her strength
 the heavenly infant who ran like a young sun.
 She burned! Cold made her sleepy 
 and petrified her skin.
 
 Then came the blonde age of soft temperatures and winds.
 The Moon was inhabited with living murmurs.
 She had bottomless oceans and numberless rivers;
 flocks, cities, tears, cries of joy;
 she knew love, the arts, laws, her gods,
 and slowly she slipped back into the shadows.
 
 There has been nothing since the like of her young, hot kiss.
 The Earth grows old, and still searches the heavens for her.
 All is bare... but at night, a ghostly sphere passes
 and you might say, seeing her form wander noiselessly,
 that she was the soul of a dead child returning at night
 to watch her mother sleep.

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Authorship

• Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2001 by Faith J. Cormier, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you may ask the copyright-holder(s) directly or ask us; we are authorized to grant permission on their behalf. Please provide the translator's name when contacting us.
  
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• a text in French (Français) by Edmond Haraucourt (1856 - 1941), "Clair de lune", subtitle: "a Émile Guiter", appears in L'âme nue, in 1. La vie extérieure, in 1. Les lois GER
• This text was set to music by the following composer(s): Charles Koechlin. Go to the text.

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