Lamp of the night, my calm confidante

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by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926)

Translation © by Grant Hicks

Lampe du soir, ma calme confidente

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: ENG

Lampe du soir, ma calme confidente, 
mon coeur n'est point par toi dévoilé ; 
(on s'y perdrait peut-être) ; mais sa pente 
du côté sud est doucement éclairée. 

C'est encore toi, ô lampe d'étudiant, 
qui veux que le liseur de temps en temps 
s'arrête, étonné, et se dérange 
sur son bouquin, te regardant. 

(Et ta simplicité supprime un Ange.)

About the headline (FAQ)

Confirmed with The Complete French Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke, Saint Paul: Greywolf Press, 1986, Page 140.

Text Authorship:

by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926), no title, written 1924/1925, appears in Poèmes français, in 1. Vergers, no. 2 [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 Paul Hindemith (1895 - 1963), "Lampe du soir", 1942, published 1999 [ voice and piano ], Schott [sung text not yet checked]
by Philippe Mazé (b. 1954), "Lampe du soir", published 2018 [ women's chorus ], from 6 Poèmes de Rainer Maria Rilke, no. 2, Artchipel [sung text not yet checked]

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

ENG English (Grant Hicks) , copyright © 2025, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Grant Hicks [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2013-10-01
Line count: 9
Word count: 57

Lamp of the night, my calm confidante

Language: English after the French (Français)

Lamp of the night, my calm confidante,
my heart is not unveiled by you—
(one might lose oneself)—but its
southern slope is softly illuminated.

It is still you, O student lamp,
who want the reader, from time to time,
to pull up, astonished, and break off
from his reading to gaze at you.

(And your simplicity displaces an Angel.)

About the headline (FAQ)

Translations of titles:
"Lampe du soir" = "Lamp of the Night"

Text Authorship:

Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2025 by Grant Hicks, (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.
Contact: licenses@email.lieder.example.net

Based on:

a text in French (Français) by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926), no title, written 1924/1925, appears in Poèmes français, in 1. Vergers, no. 2
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2025-09-05
Line count: 9
Word count: 59