Cette fleur je l'avais cueillie
À tes pieds, au bord du chemin!
Tu me dis en tendant la main:
Donne-la-moi fraîche et jolie!
À ces bois où l'oiseau soupire,
Nous avons conté nos secrets!
Rêveuse, tu la respirais,
Et la fleur cachait ton sourire!
Available sung texts: (what is this?)
• C. Gounod About the headline (FAQ)
Note: in Gounod's score, a footnote appears above "Cette fleur..." and the note informs us: "Les paroles de la 2de strophe sont de J.B." The Bibliothèque nationale de France Catalogue confirms this is Jules Barbier. The indication that these words form the "2de strophe" seem to imply that the first three stanzas by Gozlan should be considered one unit, but we have left them as they were published by Gozlan - in three separate stanzas. We have also left the above text in two-stanza format to remain consistent; however, when displaying this as a song text in a concert program or CD booklet, it would be reasonable to show a 12-line strophe followed by an 8-line strophe as suggested by the footnote in the score.
Text Authorship:
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
[ None yet in the database ]
This text (or a part of it) is used in a work
- by Charles Gounod (1818 - 1893), "Donne-moi cette fleur", CG 375 (c1867), published 1869 [ voice and piano ]
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- ENG English (Faith J. Cormier) , copyright © 2021, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Research team for this page: Emily Ezust
[Administrator] , Dr Melissa Givens
[Guest Editor] This text was added to the website: 2021-05-26
Line count: 8
Word count: 44
I plucked this flower
at your feet by the roadside.
You held out your hand to me
and asked me to give it to you, fresh and pretty.
We told our secrets
to these woods where the bird sighs.
Dreaming, you sniffed it
and the flower hid your smile!
