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Ô serre au milieu des forêts ! Et vos portes à jamais closes ! Et tout ce qu'il y a sous votre coupole ! Et dans mon âme en vos analogies ! Les pensées d'une princesse qui a faim, L'ennui d'un matelot dans le désert, Une musique de cuivreaux fenêtres des incurables. Allez aux angles les plus tièdes ! On dirait une femme évanouie un jour de moisson : Il y a des postillons dans la cour de l'hospice ; Au loin, passe un chasseur d'élans, devenu infirmier. Examinez au clair de lune ! (Oh! rien n'y est à sa place !) On dirait une folle devant les juges, Un navire de guerre à pleines voiles sur un canal, Des oiseaux de nuit sur des lys, Un glas vers midi, (Là-bàs sous ces cloches !) Une étape de malades dans la prairie, Une odeur d'éther un jour de soleil. Mon Dieu ! Mon Dieu ! Quand aurons-nous la pluie, Et la neige et le vent dans la serre !
Text Authorship:
- by Maurice Maeterlinck (1862 - 1949), "Serre chaude", written 1889, appears in Serres chaudes, Paris, Éd. Léon Vanier, first published 1889 [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 Ernest Amédée Chausson (1855 - 1899), "Serre chaude", op. 24 no. 1 (1896) [ high voice and piano ], from Serres Chaudes, no. 1 [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Thomas Oboe Lee (b. 1945), "Serre chaude", copyright © 2020 [ voice and piano ], from Chansons de Maeterlinck, no. 6 [sung text not yet checked]
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- ENG English (Barbara Miller) , "Hothouse", copyright © 2004, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- ENG English (Sophie Huet) , "Hothouse", copyright © 2009, (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: 22
Word count: 158
O hothouse in the forest! And your never-closed doors! And all there is beneath your glass dome! And analogies in my soul! The thoughts of a starving princess, The boredom of a sailor marooned in the desert, Brassy music at hospital windows. Go to the shallowest angles! It's like a woman who faints on harvest day, There are postillons in the hospital's yard, A hunter turned nurse passes in the distance Examined in the moonlight. Oh! nothing is in its place. It's like a crazy woman in front of the judges, A warship with full sails on a canal of nightbirds on lilies A knell at noon (There, under those bells!) A series of invalids in the prairie An ether smell, a sunny day My God! My God! When will it rain and snow and blow wind in the hothouse!
Text Authorship:
- Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2009 by Sophie Huet, (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.
Sophie Huet. Contact: sophiehuet (AT) gmail (DOT) com
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Based on:
- a text in French (Français) by Maurice Maeterlinck (1862 - 1949), "Serre chaude", written 1889, appears in Serres chaudes, Paris, Éd. Léon Vanier, first published 1889
This text was added to the website: 2009-04-15
Line count: 22
Word count: 140