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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.

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by Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885)
Translation © by Peter Low

Hier, la nuit d'été, qui nous prêtait...
Language: French (Français) 
Our translations:  ENG
Hier, la nuit d'été, qui nous prêtait ses voiles,
Etait digne de toi, tant elle avait d'étoiles !
Tant son calme était frais ! tant son souffle était doux !
Tant elle éteignait bien ses rumeurs apaisées !
Tant elle répandait d'amoureuses rosées
Sur les fleurs et sur nous !

Moi, j'étais devant toi, plein de joie et de flamme,
Car tu me regardais avec toute ton âme !
J'admirais la beauté dont ton front se revêt.
Et sans même qu'un mot révélât ta pensée,
La tendre rêverie en ton coeur commencée
Dans mon coeur s'achevait !

Et je bénissais Dieu, dont la grâce infinie
Sur la nuit et sur toi jeta tant d'harmonie,
Qui, pour me rendre calme et pour me rendre heureux,
Vous fit, la nuit et toi, si belles et si pures,
Si pleines de rayons, de parfums, de murmures,
Si douces toutes deux !

Oh oui, bénissons Dieu dans notre foi profonde !
C'est lui qui fit ton âme et qui créa le monde !
Lui qui charme mon coeur ! lui qui ravit mes yeux !
C'est lui que je retrouve au fond de tout mystère !
C'est lui qui fait briller ton regard sur la terre
Comme l'étoile aux cieux !

C'est Dieu qui mit l'amour au bout de toute chose,
L'amour en qui tout vit, l'amour sur qui tout pose !
C'est Dieu qui fait la nuit plus belle que le jour.
C'est Dieu qui sur ton corps, ma jeune souveraine,
A versé la beauté, comme une coupe pleine,
Et dans mon coeur l'amour !

Laisse-toi donc aimer ! - Oh ! l'amour, c'est la vie.
C'est tout ce qu'on regrette et tout ce qu'on envie
Quand on voit sa jeunesse au couchant décliner.
Sans lui rien n'est complet, sans lui rien ne rayonne.
La beauté c'est le front, l'amour c'est la couronne :
Laisse-toi couronner !

Ce qui remplit une âme, hélas ! tu peux m'en croire,
Ce n'est pas un peu d'or, ni même un peu de gloire,
Poussière que l'orgueil rapporte des combats,
Ni l'ambition folle, occupée aux chimères,
Qui ronge tristement les écorces amères
Des choses d'ici-bas ;

Non, il lui faut, vois-tu, l'hymen de deux pensées,
Les soupirs étouffés, les mains longtemps pressées,
Le baiser, parfum pur, enivrante liqueur,
Et tout ce qu'un regard dans un regard peut lire,
Et toutes les chansons de cette douce lyre
Qu'on appelle le coeur !

Il n'est rien sous le ciel qui n'ait sa loi secrète,
Son lieu cher et choisi, son abri, sa retraite,
Où mille instincts profonds nous fixent nuit et jour ;
Le pêcheur a la barque où l'espoir l'accompagne,
Les cygnes ont le lac, les aigles la montagne,
Les âmes ont l'amour !

Available sung texts: (what is this?)

•   A. Wormser 

J. Bordier sets stanzas 5, 9
P. Curet sets stanzas 1-3, 9, 6, 5
A. Wormser sets stanzas 1-3
E. Santa Coloma Sourget sets stanzas 4-6, 9, 6

About the headline (FAQ)

Text Authorship:

  • by Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885), "Hier, la nuit d'été, qui nous prêtait ses voiles", written 1833, appears in Les Chants du Crépuscule, no. 21 [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 Jules Bordier (1846 - 1896), "Chanson d'amour", published 1880?, stanzas 5,9 [ high voice (soprano or tenor) and piano ], from Douze mélodies, no. 3, Paris, Éd. G. Hartmann [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Adolphe Achille Botte (1823 - 1896), "Nuit d'été", <<1856 [ tenor and piano ], Éd. A. Vialon [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Gaston Carraud (1864 - 1920), "Nuit d'été", published [1890] [ high voice and piano ], Édition G. Hartmann & Cie. [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Paul-Charles-Marie Curet (1848 - 1917), as Paul Puget, "Hier, la nuit d'été", 1870-79?, stanzas 1-3,9,6,5 [ high voice and piano ], from Vingt mélodies, Vol. 1, no. 2, Éd. Girod [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Alfred May (d. 1894), "Nuit d'Été", published [1889] [ soprano or tenor and piano ], Paris, Éd. G. Hartmann [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Joanni Perronnet (1855 - 1900), "La nuit d'été", op. 65 [ medium voice and piano ], Éd. Henri Heugel [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Théodore César Salomé (1834 - 1896), "Nuit d'été", op. 23 no. 1 (<<1883) [ tenor and piano ], from Trois Mélodies chant & piano, no. 1, Éd. Félix Mackar [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Eugénie Santa Coloma Sourget (1827 - 1895), "Chant du crépuscule", published 1850?, stanzas 4-6,9,6 [ high voice and piano ], Édition J. Meissonnier Fils [sung text not yet checked]
  • by André Wormser (1851 - 1926), "Nuit d'Été", published [1879], stanzas 1-3 [ high voice and piano ], Paris, Éd. Théodore Michaëlis [sung text checked 1 time]

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: 2014-09-19
Line count: 54
Word count: 430

Yesterday the summer night, which lent...
Language: English  after the French (Français) 
Yesterday the summer night, which lent us its sails,
was worthy of you - it had so many stars!
Its calmness was so fresh, its breath was so gentle!
It silenced so well all the quietened noises.
It spread so much amorous dew
on the flowers and on us!

I was facing you, full of joy and flame,
for you were looking at me with all your soul!
I admired the beauty of your forehead.
And without even a word revealing your thought,
the tender reverie in your heart, begun
in mine, was reaching a conclusion.

And I thanked God, whose infinite grace
gave so much harmony to the night and to us,
who, to give me calmness and happiness,
made both the night and you so beautiful and so pure,
so full of rays and perfumes and murmurs,
and both so gentle!

Oh yes, let us bless God in our deep faith!
It is He who created your soul and the world!
He who charms my heart, who delights my eyes!
He who I find at the heart of all mysteries!
He who makes your eyes shine on earth
as the stars do in heaven!

It is God who made love the goal of everything,
love in which everything lives, on which everything rests!
It is God who made the night more beautiful than the day.
God who onto to your body, my young sovereign,
poured a brimming cup of beauty,
and onto my heart poured love! 

So let yourself be loved! Oh love is life,
it is all that one regrets and all that one desires
when one sees one's youth sink like a setting sun.
Without it nothing is complete, without it nothing shines
Beauty is the forehead, love is the crown:
let yourself be crowned!

What fills a soul, alas, believe me,
is not a little gold or even a little glory
(the dust that pride brings back from combats),
nor crazy ambition, obsessed with fantasies,
which sadly gnaws at the bitter bark
of things here below;

No, what it needs, you see, is the marriage of two thoughts,
the stifled sighs, the hands long squeezed,
the kisses (pure perfume, intoxicating liquor),
and all that one person's gaze can read in another's,
and all the songs of this soft sweet lyre
that we call the heart!

All things under heaven have their secret law,
their dear and chosen place, their shelter, their retreat,
where a thousand deep instincts anchor us night and day;
the fisherman has the boat where hope is his companion,
the swans have the lake, the eagles the mountain...
and human souls have love!

About the headline (FAQ)

Text 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.
    Contact: licenses@email.lieder.example.net

Based on:

  • a text in French (Français) by Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885), "Hier, la nuit d'été, qui nous prêtait ses voiles", written 1833, appears in Les Chants du Crépuscule, no. 21
    • Go to the text page.

 

This text was added to the website: 2022-12-12
Line count: 54
Word count: 440

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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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