My memory of you is like a well-loved book

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by Albert Victor Samain (1858 - 1900)

Translation © by Peter Low

Ton Souvenir est comme un livre bien...

Language: French (Français)

Available translation(s): ENG

Ton Souvenir est comme un livre bien aimé,
Qu'on lit sans cesse, et qui jamais n'est refermé,
Un livre où l'on vit mieux sa vie, et qui vous hante
D'un rêve nostalgique, où l'âme se tourmente.

Je voudrais, convoitant l'impossible en mes voeux,
Enfermer dans un vers l'odeur de tes cheveux ;
Ciseler avec l'art patient des orfèvres
Une phrase infléchie au contour de tes lèvres ;

Emprisonner ce trouble et ces ondes d'émoi
Qu'en tombant de ton âme, un mot propage en moi ;
Dire quelle mer chante en vagues d'élégie
Au golfe de tes seins où je me réfugie ;
Dire, oh surtout ! tes yeux doux et tièdes parfois
Comme une après-midi d'automne dans les bois ;
De l'heure la plus chère enchâsser la relique,
Et, sur le piano, tel soir mélancolique,
Ressusciter l'écho presque religieux
D'un ancien baiser attardé sur tes yeux.

About the headline (FAQ)

Authorship:

by Albert Victor Samain (1858 - 1900), "Ton Souvenir est comme un livre ...", appears in Au jardin de l'Infante, first published 1893 [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 André-Marie Cuvelier , "Ton souvenir", 1919 [ medium voice and piano ], from Chansons pour Hélène, 9ème recueil, no. 4 [sung text not yet checked]
by Jane Fonssagrives , "Ton Souvenir ", <<1909 [ medium voice and piano ], from Cinq mélodies, poèmes d'Albert Samain, no. 5, Paris, Éd. Alphonse Leduc [sung text not yet checked]
by Claude Guillon , "Ton Souvenir est comme un livre bien aimé", 1918 [ voice and piano ], from Deux Poésies d'Albert Samain, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]
by Désiré Émile Inghelbrecht (1880 - 1965), "Au jardin de l'infante", 1908, published 1911, first performed 1911 [ high voice and piano ], from Au Jardin de L'Infante, no. 1, Éd. Albert Zunz Mathot [sung text not yet checked]
by Charles Martin Tornov Loeffler (1861 - 1935), "Ton Souvenir est comme un livre bien aimé", 1911 [sung text not yet checked]
by Georges Petit , "Ton Souvenir est comme un livre bien aimé", <<1917 [ high voice and piano ], from Romances du souvenir, no. 3, Paris, Éd. Albert Boulanger [sung text not yet checked]
by Jacques Pillois (1877 - 1935), "Ton Souvenir est comme un livre bien aimé...", first performed 1910 [ high voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]

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: 2008-09-07
Line count: 18
Word count: 146

My memory of you is like a well‑loved...

Language: English after the French (Français)

My memory of you is like a well-loved book
which one constantly reads, which is never closed,
a book where one lives one's life better, and which haunts one
with a nostalgic dream, that makes the soul fret.

I wish, coveting the impossible in my wishes,
to enclose in a verse the smell of your hair;
and chisel with a goldsmith's patient art 
a sentence modelled by your lips;

To imprison that turmoil and those waves of excitement
which a word sows within me, falling from your soul;
to say what ocean sings in elegiac waves
in the gulf of your breasts where I take refuge;
to celebrate (most of all!) your sweet and often warm eyes
like an autumn afternoon in the woods;
to enshrine the relic of the dearest hour;
and on the piano, some melancholy evening,
to revive the almost religious echo
of a long-ago lingering kiss on your eyes.

About the headline (FAQ)

Authorship:

Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2022 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:

a text in French (Français) by Albert Victor Samain (1858 - 1900), "Ton Souvenir est comme un livre ...", appears in Au jardin de l'Infante, first published 1893

This text was added to the website: 2022-08-03
Line count: 18
Word count: 153