LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,900)
  • Text Authors (20,887)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,129)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

×

Attention! Some of this material is not in the public domain.

It is illegal to copy and distribute our copyright-protected material without permission. It is also illegal to reprint copyright texts or translations without the name of the author or translator.

To inquire about permissions and rates, contact Emily Ezust at licenses@email.lieder.example.net

If you wish to reprint translations, please make sure you include the names of the translators in your email. They are below each translation.

Note: You must use the copyright symbol © when you reprint copyright-protected material.

by Alphonse Marie Louis de Lamartine (1790 - 1869)
Translation © by Laura Stanfield Prichard

Invocation
 (Sung text for setting by C. Debussy)
 See original
Language: French (Français) 
Our translations:  ENG
 ... 

Élevez-vous, voix de mon âme 
Avec l'aurore, avec la nuit ! 
Élancez-vous comme la flamme,
Répandez-vous comme le bruit !
Flottez sur l'aile des nuages, 
Mêlez-vous aux vents, aux orages, 
Au tonnerre, au fracas des flots; 
L'homme en vain ferme sa paupière; 
L'hymne éternel de la prière 
Trouvera partout des échos !

 ... 

Élevez-vous dans le silence 
A l'heure où dans l'ombre du soir 
La lampe des nuits se balance, 
Quand le prêtre éteint l'encensoir; 
Élevez-vous au bord des ondes 
Dans ces solitudes profondes 
Où Dieu se révèle à la foi ! 
Chantez dans mes heures funèbres :
Amour, il n'est point de ténèbres, 
Point de solitude avec toi !

Note: the text above is taken from stanzas 13,15 of the original text.

Composition:

    Set to music by Claude Achille Debussy (1862 - 1918), "Invocation", L. 51/(40) (1883), stanzas 13,15 [ men's chorus and orchestra ]

Text Authorship:

  • by Alphonse Marie Louis de Lamartine (1790 - 1869), "Invocation", appears in Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, Book I

See other settings of this text.

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

  • ENG English (Laura Stanfield Prichard) , "Invocation", copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2011-04-28
Line count: 149
Word count: 936

Invocation
 (Sung text translation for setting by C. Debussy)
 See original
Language: English  after the French (Français) 
 ... 

Rise up, O voice of my soul
With the dawn, with the night! 
Blaze like a flame,
Scatter like noise!
Float away on a wisp of cloud, 
Merge into the winds, into thunderstorms, 
Into thunder, into the roar of the tide; 
In vain, people may brush me off;
The eternal hymn of my prayer 
Will echo throughout the world!

 ... 

Rise up silently
At the time when in the evening shadows, 
The lamp of night swings, 
When the priest extinguishes the thurible; 
Rise up in the dead calm
In that profound solitude 
Where God reveals himself to the faithful! 
Sing in my final hours:
Love, there is no obscurity, 
No loneliness when you are present!

Note: the text above is taken from stanzas 13,15 of the original text.

Translator's notes:
Stanza 13, line 8: literally, “Mankind, in vain, may shut its eyes”
Stanza 15, line 4 ("thurible"): a type of censer, in which the metal container holding burning incense swings from metal chains held by a thurifer or priest

Text Authorship:

  • Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2024 by Laura Stanfield Prichard, (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 Alphonse Marie Louis de Lamartine (1790 - 1869), "Invocation", appears in Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, Book I
    • Go to the text page.

Go to the general single-text view


This text was added to the website: 2024-08-14
Line count: 149
Word count: 1028

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2026 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris