by
Paul Verlaine (1844 - 1896)
Malines
Language: French (Français)
Available translation(s): ENG
Vers les prés le vent cherche noise
Aux girouettes, détail fin
Du château de quelque échevin,
Rouge de brique et bleu d'ardoise,
Vers les prés clairs, les prés sans fin...
Comme les arbres des féeries,
Des frênes, vagues frondaisons,
Êchelonnent mille horizons
A ce Sahara de prairies,
Trèfle, luzerne et blancs gazons.
Les wagons filent en silence
Parmi ces sites apaisés.
Dormez, les vaches ! Reposez,
Doux taureaux de la plaine immense,
Sous vos cieux à peine irisés !
Le train glisse sans un murmure,
Chaque wagon est un salon
Où l'on cause bas et d'où l'on
Aime à loisir cette nature.
Faite à souhait pour Fénelon.
Authorship:
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- ENG English (Peter Low) , "Mechelen", copyright © 2021, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [
Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2009-01-04
Line count: 20
Word count: 107
Mechelen
Language: English  after the French (Français)
Near the meadows the wind pursues a quarrel
with the weathercocks, a tiny detail
of some burgomaster's stately home,
red with brick and blue with slate
near the bright and endless meadows.
Like trees in fairytales
the ashes are vague lines of foliage
spaced out across a thousand horizons
of this pastoral Sahara,
clover, lucerne and pale grasses.
The carriages pass in silence
through these calm landscapes.
Sleep, you cows! Sleep,
gentle bulls of the vast plain,
under your dull cloudy skies!
The train slides by without a murmur,
each carriage a salon
where people talk softly and
have the leisure to admire
this nature just as Fénelon would wish it.
Note: "Malines" is the French name for the town of Mechelen in Flanders.
Authorship:
- Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2021 by Peter Low, (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:
This text was added to the website: 2021-03-12
Line count: 20
Word count: 111