Canti del sole

Song Cycle by Bernard Rands (b. 1934)

1. Mattina
 (Sung text)

Language: Italian (Italiano) 
M'illumino d'immenso.

Text Authorship:

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Please note: this text, provided here for educational and research use, is in the public domain in Canada, but it may still be copyright in other legal jurisdictions. The LiederNet Archive makes no guarantee that the above text is public domain in your country. Please consult your country's copyright statutes or a qualified IP attorney to verify whether a certain text is in the public domain in your country or if downloading or distributing a copy constitutes fair use. The LiederNet Archive assumes no legal responsibility or liability for the copyright compliance of third parties.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

2. The Dawn Verse
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
The dark is dividing,
the sun is coming past the wall,
Day is at hand.
Lift your hand, say farewell!
Say Welcome!
Then be silent. 
Let the darkness leave you,
let the light come into you.
Man in the twilight.

Text Authorship:

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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

3. From "The Masque of the Twelve Months"
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
 Shine out, fair Sun, with all your heat,
   Show all your thousand-coloured light!
 Black Winter freezes  ...  his seat;
   The grey wolf howls, he does so bite;
 Crookt Age on three knees creeps the street;
   The boneless fish close quaking lies
 And eats for cold his aching feet;
   The stars in icicles arise:

 Shine out, and make this winter night
 Our beauty's Spring, our Prince of Light!

Text Authorship:

  • by George Chapman (1559? - 1634), from "The Masque of the Twelve Months".

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

  • CHI Chinese (中文) (Dr Huaixing Wang) , copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

4. From "Soleil et Chair"
 (Sung text)

Language: French (Français) 
Le Soleil, le foyer de tendresse et de vie,
Verse l'amour brûlant à la terre ravie,
Et, quand on est couché sur la vallée, on sent
Que la terre est nubile et déborde de sang ;
Que son immense sein, soulevé par une âme,
Est d'amour comme dieu, de chair comme la femme,
Et qu'il renferme, gros de sève et de rayons,
Le grand fourmillement de tous les embryons !

Et tout croît, et tout monte !

 ...

Text Authorship:

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5. Portami il girasole ch'io lo trapianti
 (Sung text)

Language: Italian (Italiano) 
Portami il girasole ch'io lo trapianti
 [ ... ]

Text Authorship:

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6. I turn the corner of prayer and burn
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
  I turn the corner of prayer and burn
     In a blessing of the sudden
   Sun. In the name of the damned
      I would turn back and run
       To the hidden land
        But the loud sun
         Christens down
            The sky.
              I
            Am found.
            O let him
       Scald me and drown
     Me in his world's wound
    His lightning answers my
  Cry. My voice burns in his hand.
   Now I am lost in the blinding
 One. The sun roars at the prayer's end.

Text Authorship:

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7. Sinisgalli
 (Sung text)

Language: Italian (Italiano) 
Sono che calabroni
che saggiano la pera
vi affondano le corna.
Scavano un buco
fino a succhiarne la polpa.
Quando il sole si sposta.
Dalla parte de sole
cavano un altro occhio

Chiama la gente queste
le piante della sorte;
come piccoli teschi
pendono le zuccone
dagli alberi funesti.

Text Authorship:

  • by Anonymous / Unidentified Author

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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

8. Futility
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Move him into the sun -
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning, and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know. 

Think how it wakes the seed -
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,
Full-nerved - still warm - too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break the earth's sleep at all?

Text Authorship:

  • by Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918), "Futility", first published 1918

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

  • FRE French (Français) (Pierre Mathé) , "Futilité", copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • SPA Spanish (Español) (Dr. Anthony Krupp) (Clo Blanco) , copyright © 2025, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

First published in Nation, 1918. In some editions, in stanza 1 line 3, "unsown" is "half-sown"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

9. September
 (Sung text)

Language: German (Deutsch) 
Noch nistet die Sonne im Duft
 [ ... ]

Text Authorship:

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

  • ENG English (Sharon Krebs) , "September", copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

This text may be copyright, so we will not display it until we obtain permission to do so or discover it is public-domain.

Confirmed with Peter Huchel, Gesammelte Werke in zwei Bänden, Herausgegeben von Axel Vieregg, Band I Die Gedichte, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1984, page 81.


10. November by the Sea
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Now in November nearer comes the sun
down the abandoned heaven.
As the dark closes round him, he draws nearer
as if for our company.

At the base of the lower brain
the sun in me declines to his winter solstice
and darts a few gold rays
back to the old year's sun across the sea.

A few gold rays thickening down to red
as the sun of my soul is setting
setting fierce and undaunted, wintry
but setting, setting behind the sounding sea
between my ribs.

The wide sea wins, and the dark
winter, and the great day-sun, and the sun in my soul
sinks, sinks to setting and the winter solstice
downward, they race in decline
my sun, and the great gold sun.

Text Authorship:

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Confirmed with D. H. Lawrence, The Poems, edited by Christopher Pollnitz, Cambridge University Press, 2013, Volume I, page 395.


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

11. Fadensonnen
 (Sung text)

Language: German (Deutsch) 
FADENSONNEN
über der grauschwarzen Ödnis
Ein baum -
hoher Gedanke
greift sich den Lichtton: es sind
noch Lieder zu singen jenseits
der Menschen.

Text Authorship:

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Please note: this text, provided here for educational and research use, is in the public domain in Canada, but it may still be copyright in other legal jurisdictions. The LiederNet Archive makes no guarantee that the above text is public domain in your country. Please consult your country's copyright statutes or a qualified IP attorney to verify whether a certain text is in the public domain in your country or if downloading or distributing a copy constitutes fair use. The LiederNet Archive assumes no legal responsibility or liability for the copyright compliance of third parties.

Research team for this page: John Versmoren , Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor]

12. Harmonie du soir
 (Sung text)

Language: French (Français) 
Voici venir les temps où vibrant sur sa tige
Chaque fleur s'évapore ainsi qu'un encensoir ;
Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir,
— Valse mélancolique et langoureux vertige ! —

Chaque fleur s'évapore ainsi qu'un encensoir ;
Le violon frémit comme un cœur qu'on afflige ;
— Valse mélancolique et langoureux vertige ! —
Le ciel est triste et beau comme un grand reposoir.

Le violon frémit comme un cœur qu'on afflige,
Un cœur tendre, qui hait le néant vaste et noir !
— Le ciel est triste et beau comme un grand reposoir ;
Le soleil s'est noyé dans son sang qui se fige.

Un cœur tendre qui hait le néant vaste et noir
Du passé lumineux recueille tout vestige ;
— Le soleil s'est noyé dans son sang qui se fige ;
Ton souvenir en moi luit comme un ostensoir !

Text Authorship:

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

  • CZE Czech (Čeština) (Jaroslav Vrchlický) , "Harmonie večera"
  • ENG English (Peter Low) , "Evening harmony", copyright © 2000, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • ENG English (Cyril Meir Scott) , "Evening Harmony", appears in The Flowers of Evil, London, Elkin Mathews, first published 1909
  • HUN Hungarian (Magyar) (Árpád Tóth) , "Esti harmónia", written 1920
  • POL Polish (Polski) (Bronisława Ostrowska) , "Harmonia wieczoru", Kraków, first published 1911
  • ROM Romanian (Română) (Alexandru I. Philippide) , "Armonie în amurg"
  • SPA Spanish (Español) (Victor Torres) , "Armonía del atadecer", copyright © 2011, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Confirmed with Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du mal, Paris: Poulet-Malassis et de Broise, 1857, in Spleen et Idéal, pages 101-102. Note: this was number 43 in the 1857 edition of Les Fleurs du mal but 47 or 48 in subsequent editions.


Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Poom Andrew Pipatjarasgit [Guest Editor]

13. Sunset Verse
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
Leave off! Leave off! Leave off!
Lift your hand, say Farewell! say Welcome!
Man in the twilight
The sun is in the outer porch, cry to him;
Thanks! Oh, Thanks!
Then be silent
You belong to the night.

Text Authorship:

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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

14. Ed è sùbito sera
 (Sung text)

Language: Italian (Italiano) 
Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra
trafitto da un raggio di sole;
ed è sùbito sera.

Text Authorship:

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

  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , "Et soudain c'est le soir", copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Please note: this text, provided here for educational and research use, is in the public domain in Canada, but it may still be copyright in other legal jurisdictions. The LiederNet Archive makes no guarantee that the above text is public domain in your country. Please consult your country's copyright statutes or a qualified IP attorney to verify whether a certain text is in the public domain in your country or if downloading or distributing a copy constitutes fair use. The LiederNet Archive assumes no legal responsibility or liability for the copyright compliance of third parties.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 1144