[Mon âme]1 a son secret, [ma vie]2 a son mystère :
Un amour éternel en un moment conçu. 
Le mal est sans espoir, aussi j'ai dû le taire,
Et celle qui l'a fait n'en a jamais rien su. 

Hélas ! j'aurai passé près d'elle inaperçu,
Toujours à ses côtés, et pourtant solitaire,
Et j'aurai jusqu'au bout fait mon temps sur la terre,
N'osant rien demander et n'ayant rien reçu. 

Pour elle, quoique Dieu l'ait faite douce et tendre,
Elle ira son chemin, distraite, et sans entendre
[Ce murmure d'amour élevé sur ses pas ;]3

À l'austère devoir pieusement fidèle,
Elle dira, lisant ces vers tout remplis d'elle :
« Quelle est donc cette femme ? » et ne comprendra pas.

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)
¹ Lemariey: "Mon cœur"; Thomé, Van Straten: "Ma vie"
² Lemariey, Van Straten: "mon âme" (further changes may exist but are not shown above) ; Widor: "mon cœur"
³ Widor: "Ce cœur vibrant d'amour enchaîné sur ses pas !"

Text Authorship:

• by Félix Arvers (1806 - 1850), "Sonnet imité de l'italien", written 1833, appears in Mes heures perdues, Poésies, Paris, Éd. Fournier jeune, first published 1833 [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 René de Boisdeffre (1838 - 1906), "Sonnet d'Arvers", op. 53 no. 1, published [1893] [ voice and piano ], from Six mélodies, recueil 4, no. 1, Paris, Éd. J. Hamelle [sung text not yet checked]
• by Martial Caillebotte (1853 - 1910), "Sonnet" [ medium voice and piano ], from Scènes et Mélodies, no. 4, Paris, Éd. G. Hartmann [sung text not yet checked]
• by Jacques Dusautoy (1850 - 1915), "Sonnet d'Arvers imité de l'Italien", op. 50 no. 1, published [1898] [ reciter and piano ], from Deux adaptations symphoniques, no. 1, Paris, Éd. J. Hamelle [sung text not yet checked]
• by Luciano Gallet (1893 - 1931), "Le sonnet d'Arvers", 1918 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Édouard Garnier (1821 - 1887), "Mon âme a son secret", published <<1878 [ medium voice and piano ], from Vingt sonnets mis en musique, no. 19, Paris, Éditions Alphonse Leduc [sung text not yet checked]
• by André Gédalge (1856 - 1926), "Sonnet d'Arvers", 1879 [ medium voice and piano ], unpublished but available through Gallica [sung text not yet checked]
• by Jean Eugène Gaston Lemaire (1864 - 1928), "Sonnet d'Arvers", published 1914 [ medium voice and piano ], Paris, Éd. Marcel Mercier [sung text not yet checked]
• by Madeleine Lemariey (flourished c1900-1915), "Sonnet d'Arvers", <<1913 [ medium voice and piano ], Paris, Éd. Maurice Sénart & Cie. [sung text not yet checked]
• by Émile Pessard (1843 - 1917), "Sonnet d'Arvers", published 1891 [ voice and piano ], from Vingt mélodies, no. 8, Paris, Éd. Alphonse Leduc [sung text not yet checked]
• by Casimir Renard (b. 1853), "Sonnet d'Arvers ", op. 237, published 1925 [ medium voice and piano ], Paris, Éd. F. Durdilly, Ch. Hayet [sung text not yet checked]
• by Eric Tanguy (b. 1968), "Mes heures perdues", 2007, published 2007 [ baritone and piano ], Éd. Salabert [sung text not yet checked]
• by François Luc Joseph Thomé (1850 - 1909), as Francis Thomé, "Sonnet d'Arvers", published [1879] [ high voice and piano ], from Dix mélodies, no. 4, Paris, Henri Heugel [sung text not yet checked]
• by Léon Van Straten , "Sonnet d'Arvers", published 1924 [ medium voice and piano ], from Deux mélodies, no. 1, Paris, Éd. Maurice Sénart [sung text not yet checked]
• by Charles Marie Jean Albert Widor (1844 - 1937), "Sonnet d'Arvers" [ voice and piano ], from Quarante mélodies, no. 32, note: published later as op. 22 no. 2 by an unknown publisher, as reprinted by Durand [sung text checked 1 time]

Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:

• Also set in French (Français), [adaptation] ; composed by Georges Bizet.
  • Go to the text.
    

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

• ENG English (Peter Low) , copyright © 2022, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2008-08-11
Line count: 14
Word count: 116

My soul has its secret, my life has its mystery:
an eternal love conceived in a moment.
There's no hope of curing it, so I had to keep silent,
and the woman in question has never known a thing.
 
Alas! I will have passed near to her unnoticed,
always in her circle, and yet solitary,
and right to the end I will have lived my time on earth,
not daring to ask for anything and not receiving anything.
 
As for her, although God made her sweet and tender,
she will go her way, inattentive, not hearing
the murmur of love that arises where she walks:

piously faithful to her austere duty,
she will say, reading these verses filled with her:
"So who is this woman?" and will not understand.