Rafales de sable | Je pensais que je ne marcherais plus sur ces dunes

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by Sara Teasdale (1884 - 1933)

Translation © by Pierre Mathé

Sand drift

Language: English

Our translations: FRE

I thought I should not walk these dunes again,
Nor feel the sting of this wind-bitten sand,
Where the coarse grasses always blow one way,
Bent, as my thoughts are, by an unseen hand.

I have returned; where the last wave rushed up
The wet sand is a mirror for the sky
A bright blue instant, and along its sheen
The nimble sandpipers run twinkling by.

Nothing has changed; with the same hollow thunder
The waves die in their everlasting snow --
Only the place we sat is drifted over,
Lost in the blowing sand, long, long ago.

Confirmed with Sara Teasdale, Dark of The Moon, New York, The Macmillan Company, 1926, page 33.

Text Authorship:

by Sara Teasdale (1884 - 1933), "Sand drift", appears in Dark of the Moon, in Sand Drift, first published 1926 [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 Gustav Klemm (1897 - 1947), "Sand drift", published 1940. [voice and piano] [
text not verified
]

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

FRE French (Français) (Pierre Mathé) , title 1: "Rafales de sable", copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2011-02-13
Line count: 12
Word count: 97

Rafales de sable

Language: French (Français) after the English

Je pensais que je ne marcherais plus sur ces dunes,
Et ne sentirais plus la piqûre de ce vent de sable,
Là où les herbes rêches penchent toujours dans le même sens,
Courbées, comme le sont mes pensées, par une main invisible.

Je suis retournée ; là où la dernière vague se précipite
Le sable mouillé est un miroir pour le ciel,
Un instant bleu vif, et le long de son lustre
 Le fringant bécasseau court allègrement.

Rien n'a changé : avec le même bruir creux de tonnerre
Les vagues meurent dans leur éternelle neige,
Seul l'endroit où nous nous asseyions a disparu,
Perdu sous les rafales de sable depuis longtemps, longtemps.

Text Authorship:

Translation from English to French (Français) copyright © 2015 by Pierre Mathé, (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 English by Sara Teasdale (1884 - 1933), "Sand drift", appears in Dark of the Moon, in Sand Drift, first published 1926
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2015-10-13
Line count: 12
Word count: 110