Fording the Stream | We had to cross the river

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by Édouard Jules Henri Pailleron (1834 - 1899)

Translation © by Laura Prichard

Le Gué

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: ENG

Il fallait passer la rivière,
Nous étions tous deux aux abois.
J’étais timide, elle était fière,
Les tarins chantaient dans les bois.

Elle me dit : « J’irai derrière,
Mon ami, ne regardez pas. »
Et puis elle défit ses bas…
Il fallait passer la rivière.

Text Authorship:

by Édouard Jules Henri Pailleron (1834 - 1899), "Le Gué", appears in Amours et haines, in 3. Les Drôles, no. 6, Paris, Éd. Michel Lévy frères, first published 1869 [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 Dominique Dagnan , "Le Gué", op. 23 (<<1911) [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Lucien Darbois (1875 - 1914), "Le Gué", op. 3 (Deux nouvelles Mélodies pour chant et piano) no. 1 (<<1912) [ high voice and piano ], Paris, Édition Costallat & Cie. [sung text not yet checked]
by Florestan Duysburgh (1879 - 1964), "Le Gué" [ tenor and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Charles Jean Baptiste Grisart (1837 - 1904), "Le Gué", published [1898] [ medium voice and piano ], Paris, Éd. 'Au Ménestrel' Henri Heugel [sung text not yet checked]
by Charles Lagourgue (1875 - 1959), "Le Gué", op. 23 no. 2 [ medium voice and piano ], Éd. H. Hérelle & Cie., Nouvelles Éditions Mutuelles [sung text not yet checked]
by Cornélie van Oosterzee (1863 - 1943), "Le gué", published c1882 [ voice and piano ], La Haye : Van Eck [sung text not yet checked]
by George Templeton Strong (1856 - 1948), "Le Gué", 1929, published 1929, from Trois chants pour voix moyenne avec accompagnement de piano, no. 2, Genève, Édition Henn [sung text checked 1 time]

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

ENG English (Laura Prichard) , "Fording the Stream", copyright © 2025, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2022-02-04
Line count: 8
Word count: 45

Fording the Stream

Language: English after the French (Français)

We had to cross the river,
We were both desperate.
I was shy, she was proud,
The finches were singing in the woods.

She said to me, “I’ll duck behind here,
My friend, Don’t look.”
And then she undid her stockings…
We had to cross the river.

Text Authorship:

Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2025 by Laura Prichard, (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 Édouard Jules Henri Pailleron (1834 - 1899), "Le Gué", appears in Amours et haines, in 3. Les Drôles, no. 6, Paris, Éd. Michel Lévy frères, first published 1869
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2025-10-08
Line count: 8
Word count: 47