Romanze | Die flüchtige und leidende Seele

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by Paul Bourget (1852 - 1935)

Translation © by Bertram Kottmann

L'âme évaporée et souffrante

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: ENG GER JPN

L'âme évaporée et souffrante,
L'âme douce, l'âme odorante
Des lys divins que j'ai cueillis
Dans le jardin de ta pensée,
Où donc les vents l'ont-ils chassée,
Cette âme adorable des lys?

N'est-il plus un parfum qui reste
De la suavité céleste
Des jours où tu m'enveloppais
D'une vapeur surnaturelle,
Faite d'espoir, d'amour fidèle,
De béatitude et de paix?...

Available sung texts: (what is this?)

• C. Debussy

About the headline (FAQ)

Text Authorship:

by Paul Bourget (1852 - 1935), "Romance", written 1882, appears in Les Aveux, in Amour, no. 32, Paris Éd. Alphonse Lemerre, first published 1882 [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 Claude Achille Debussy (1862 - 1918), "Romance", L. 65/(79) no. 2 (1891) [ voice and piano ], from Deux Romances, no. 2 [sung text checked 1 time]
by Charles Marie Jean Albert Widor (1844 - 1937), "L'âme des lys", op. 63 no. 4 [ high voice and piano ], from Soirs d'été, no. 4, Durand [sung text not yet checked]

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

ENG English (Korin Kormick) , "Romance", copyright © 2002, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , "Romanze", copyright © 2006, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
JPN Japanese (日本語) (Naoyuki Okada) , copyright © 2025, (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: 58

Romanze

Language: German (Deutsch) after the French (Français)

Die flüchtige und leidende Seele,
die süße Seele, die duftende Seele
göttlicher Lilien, die ich gepflückt habe
im Garten deiner Gedanken,
wohin denn haben die Winde sie verjagt,
diese anzubetende Seele der Lilien?
Ist kein Duft mehr geblieben
von der Himmelssüße
der Tage als du mich einhülltest
in einen übernatürlichen Schleier,
gewoben aus Hoffen, treuer Liebe,
Glückseligkeit und Frieden.

Text Authorship:

Translation from French (Français) to German (Deutsch) copyright © 2006 by Bertram Kottmann, (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.
Bertram Kottmann. Contact: BKottmann (AT) t-online.de
If you wish to commission a new translation, please contact: licenses@email.lieder.example.net

Based on:

a text in French (Français) by Paul Bourget (1852 - 1935), "Romance", written 1882, appears in Les Aveux, in Amour, no. 32, Paris Éd. Alphonse Lemerre, first published 1882
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2006-01-10
Line count: 12
Word count: 59