À vous ces vers de par la grâce consolante De vos grands yeux où rit et pleure un rêve doux, De par votre âme pure et toute bonne, à vous Ces vers du fond de ma détresse violente. C'est qu'hélas ! le hideux cauchemar qui me hante N'a pas de trêve et va furieux, fou, jaloux, Se multipliant comme un cortège de loups Et se pendant après mon sort qu'il ensanglante ! [Oh !]1 je souffre, je souffre affreusement, si bien Que le gémissement premier du premier homme Chassé d'Éden n'est qu'une églogue [au prix]2 du mien ! Et les soucis que vous pouvez avoir sont comme Des hirondelles sur un ciel d'après-midi, — Chère, — par un beau jour de septembre attiédi.
About the headline (FAQ)
View original text (without footnotes)Confirmed with Paul Verlaine, Poëmes saturniens, Paris: Alphonse Lemerre, 1866, pages 25-26.
1 Vierne: "Et"2 Vierne: "auprès"
Text Authorship:
- by Paul Verlaine (1844 - 1896), "À une femme", appears in Poèmes saturniens, in 1. Melancholia, no. 7, Paris, Édition Alphonse Lemerre, first published 1866 [author's text checked 2 times 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 Dinu Lipatti (1917 - 1950), "À une femme", op. 9 no. 1 (1941) [ voice and piano ], from Cinq Mélodies sur des Poèmes de Paul Verlaine, no. 1, note: published in Romania as Cinci Lieduri pe Versuri de Verlaine. [sung text not yet checked]
- by Charles Martin Tornov Loeffler (1861 - 1935), "À une femme" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Youssef Khan Nazare-Aga, dit Kyna (1870 - 1942), "À vous ces vers", published 1908 [ voice and piano ], from Deux sonnets, no. 2, Heugel [sung text not yet checked]
- by Robert Otlet , "À une femme", published 1935 [ voice and piano ], from Melancholia, no. 6, Bosworth et Cie [sung text not yet checked]
- by Louis Vierne (1870 - 1937), "À une femme", op. 38 no. 5 (1916), published 1924 [ high voice and piano ], from Spleens et Détresses, no. 5, Salabert [sung text checked 1 time]
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- ENG English (Corinne Orde) , "To a woman", copyright © 2008, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- ENG English (Bergen Weeks Applegate) , "To a Woman", appears in Poems Saturnine, in 1. Melancholia, no. 7
Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Poom Andrew Pipatjarasgit [Guest Editor]
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 14
Word count: 122
To you these songs for the consoling grace Of your great eyes where laughs and weeps a dream; For your pure soul whose goodness sheds a beam — To you these songs out of my deep distress. What hideous nightmares haunt me in this place; Foolish, jealous, furious, and that seem To multiply like wolves whose white fangs gleam, Threatening the while to leave their bloody trace. Oh! how I suffer, suffer and repine, So that the first grief of the world's first man Driven from Eden scarce compares with mine! And may your cares be like, or lighter than The swallows on a sky of afternoon, Dear — on a fair September day, in tune.
Confirmed with Bergen Applegate, Paul Verlaine: His Absinthe-Tinted Song, Chicago, Ralph Fletcher Seymour, The Alderbrink Press, 1916, page 48-49.
Text Authorship:
- by Bergen Weeks Applegate (b. 1865), "To a Woman", appears in Poems Saturnine, in 1. Melancholia, no. 7 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Based on:
- a text in French (Français) by Paul Verlaine (1844 - 1896), "À une femme", appears in Poèmes saturniens, in 1. Melancholia, no. 7, Paris, Édition Alphonse Lemerre, first published 1866
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 ]
Researcher for this page: Poom Andrew Pipatjarasgit [Guest Editor]
This text was added to the website: 2022-03-09
Line count: 14
Word count: 116