Beautiful butterfly near the ground

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by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926)

Translation © by Grant Hicks

Beau papillon, près du sol

(Sung text for setting by D. Milhaud)

See original

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: ENG GER

Beau papillon près du sol 
 ...  
montrant les enluminures 
de son livre de vol. 

Un autre se ferme au bord 
de la fleur qu’on respire : — 
ce n’est pas le moment de lire. 
Et tant d’autres encor, 

de menus bleus, s’éparpillent, 
flottants et voletants, 
comme de bleues brindilles 
d’une lettre d’amour au vent, 

d’une lettre déchirée 
qu’on était en train de faire 
pendant que la destinataire 
hésitait à l’entrée.

Composition:

Darius Milhaud

Quatrains Valaisans

Text Authorship:

by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926), no title, appears in Poèmes français, in 2. Les Quatrains Valaisans, no. 36

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

ENG English (Grant Hicks) , copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Research team for this page: Grant Hicks [Guest Editor] , Bertram Kottmann , Ivo Zandhuis

This text was added to the website: 2004-12-11
Line count: 16
Word count: 72

Beautiful butterfly near the ground

(Sung text translation for setting by D. Milhaud)

See original

Language: English after the French (Français)

Beautiful butterfly near the ground 
 ...  
displaying the illuminations 
of its book of flight. 

Another closes up on the edge 
of the flower one is smelling:
this is no time for reading. 
And so many others beside, 

tiny blues, scatter, 
floating and fluttering, 
like blue scraps 
from a love letter in the wind, 

from a torn-up letter 
that one was writing 
even as the addressee 
hesitated at the door.

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Text Authorship:

Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2016 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.
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Based on:

a text in French (Français) by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926), no title, appears in Poèmes français, in 2. Les Quatrains Valaisans, no. 36
- Go to the text page.

Go to the general single-text view

This text was added to the website: 2016-07-09
Line count: 16
Word count: 73