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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

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by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 - 1882)
Translation © by Tim Palmer

Your hands lie open in the long fresh...
Language: English 
Our translations:  CAT FRE GER SPA
Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass, -
  The finger-points look through like rosy blooms:
  Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms
'Neath billowing [clouds]1 that scatter and amass.

All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,
  Are golden kingcup fields with silver edge
  Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn hedge.
'Tis visible silence, still as the hour glass.

Deep in the sunsearched growths the dragon-fly
Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky: -
  So this winged hour is dropt to us from above.
Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,
This close-companioned inarticulate hour
  When twofold silence was the song of love.

Available sung texts: (what is this?)

•   R. Vaughan Williams 

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Vaughan Williams: "skies"

Text Authorship:

  • by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 - 1882), "Silent noon", appears in Ballads and Sonnets, first published 1881 [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 George Frederick Boyle (1886 - 1948), "Your hands lie open", published 1939 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Henry Clough-Leighter (1874 - 1956), "Silent noon", published 1910 [ high voice, piano, and string quartet ], from The Day of Beauty [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Edward Toner Cone (b. 1917), "Silent noon", published 1964 [ soprano and piano ], in the collection New Vistas of Song [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Frederick Shepherd Converse (1871 - 1940), "Silent noon", published <<1940 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
  • by John Henry Diercks (b. 1927), "Pastorale", 1957 [ SSA chorus and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Ernest Bristow Farrar (1885 - 1918), "Silent noon", op. 10 no. 2, published 1911 [ voice and piano ], from Vagabond Songs, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Miriam Gideon (1906 - 1996), "Silent noon", 1983 [ medium voice and piano (or flute, oboe, vibraphone, violin, and violoncello) ], from Wing'd Hour, no. 2, New York, Peters [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Robert William Manton (1894 - 1967), "The wing'd hour", 1954 [ medium voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Charles Wilfred Orr (1893 - 1976), "Silent noon", 1921, published 1922 [ baritone and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Masters van Someren-Godfery (d. 1947), "Silent noon", published 1925 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 - 1958), "Silent noon", 1903, published 1904 [ voice and piano ], from The House of Life, no. 2 [sung text checked 1 time]
  • by Elinor Remick Warren (1900 - 1991), "Silent noon", published 1928 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]

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

  • CAT Catalan (Català) (Sílvia Pujalte Piñán) , "Migdia silenciós", copyright © 2013, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • FRE French (Français) (Tim Palmer) , copyright © 2017, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Richard Flatter) , "Schweigender Mittag", appears in Die Fähre, Englische Lyrik aus fünf Jahrhunderten, first published 1936
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Sylvia Bendel Larcher) , copyright © 2021, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • POL Polish (Polski) (Jan Kasprowicz) , "Cisza południa", Warsaw, Księgarnia H. Antenberga, first published 1907
  • SPA Spanish (Español) (Mercedes Vivas) , copyright © 2011, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 14
Word count: 112

Tes mains ouvertes reposent sur l’herbe...
Language: French (Français)  after the English 
Tes mains ouvertes reposent sur l’herbe longe et fraîche,
les pointes des doigts regardent à travers comme des floraisons :
tes yeux sourient la paix. Le pâturage luit et assombrit
sous les ciels tournoyants qui dispersent et s’accumulent.  

Tout autour de notre nid, jusqu’où l’œuil peut voir,
sont des champs de boutons d’or à bords d’argent,
où le cerfeuil des bois contourne la haie d’aubépine.
C’est le silence visible, immobile comme le sablier.

Au cœur des pousses recherchées par le soleil la libellule
est suspendu comme un fil bleu relâché du ciel ;
ainsi cette heure ailée nous est lâchée d’en haut.
Oh nous serrons à nos cœurs, pour une dot sans mort,
cette heure de compagnie intime inexprimable
quand le silence double était la chanson d’amour.

About the headline (FAQ)

Translation of title "Silent noon" = "Midi silencieux"

Text Authorship:

  • Translation from English to French (Français) copyright © 2017 by Tim Palmer, (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 English by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 - 1882), "Silent noon", appears in Ballads and Sonnets, first published 1881
    • Go to the text page.

 

This text was added to the website: 2017-07-07
Line count: 14
Word count: 125

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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

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