When the night falls I hear a voice, a song:
“Au clair de la lune, mon ami Pierrot,
Prête-moi ta plume pour écrire un mot.”1
‘Tis the old lamplighter:
A magic turn or two, just where, he knows!
And lo! the street is filled with stars!
Then on his way he goes:
“Au clair de la lune, mon ami Pierrot,
Prête-moi ta plume pour écrire un mot.”

View original text (without footnotes)
¹ "By the light of the moon, my friend Pierrot, / Lend me your pen to write a word."

Text Authorship:

• by Kathleen Lockhart Manning  [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 Kathleen Lockhart Manning , "The Lamplighter", published 1925 [ voice and piano ], from Sketches of Paris, no. 2, New York: G. Schirmer [sung text checked 1 time]

Researcher for this page: Garrett Medlock [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2019-09-11
Line count: 9
Word count: 68