The Mists | Dreary mists of Winter, melancholy

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by Émile Verhaeren (1855 - 1916)

Translation © by Grant Hicks

Les brumes

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: ENG

Chosen for Diff

Brumes mornes d'hiver, mélancoliquement 
Et douloureusement, roulez sur mes pensées 
Et sur mon cœur vos longs linceuls d'enterrement 
Et de rameaux défunts et de feuilles froissées 
Et livides, tandis qu'au loin, vers l'horizon, 
Sous l'ouatement mouillé de la plaine dormante, 
Parmi les échos sourds et souffreteux, le son 
D'un angelus lassé se perd et se lamente 
Encore et va mourir dans le vide du soir, 
Si seul, si pauvre et si craintif, qu'une corneille, 
Blottie entre les gros arceaux d'un vieux voussoir,
A l'entendre gémir et sangloter, s'éveille 
Et doucement répond et se plaint à son tour 
A travers le silence entier que l'heure apporte, 
Et tout à coup se tait, croyant que dans la tour 
L'agonie est éteinte et que la cloche est morte.

Confirmed with Emile Verhaeren, Poèmes: Les bords de la route, Les Flamandes, Les moines, Paris: Société du Mercure de France, 1895, pages 10-11.

Text Authorship:

by Émile Verhaeren (1855 - 1916), "Les brumes", written 1882-94, appears in Poèmes, in 1. Les bords de la route, in 2. Décors tristes, no. 2, Paris, Éd. du Mercure de France, first published 1895 [author's text checked 2 times 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 Albert Dupuis (1877 - 1967), "Les brumes", published 1921 [ high voice and piano ], from Douze mélodies, no. 2, Bruxelles (Brussels), Éd. J.B. Katto, Antoine Ysaye & Co. [sung text not yet checked]
by Maurice Touchard (1879 - 1956), "Les brumes", 1919, published 1923 [ medium voice and piano ], Éd. Maurice Senart [sung text checked 1 time]

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

ENG English (Grant Hicks) , "The Mists", copyright © 2026, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Grant Hicks [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2017-03-04
Line count: 16
Word count: 125

The Mists

Language: English after the French (Français)

Chosen for Diff

Dreary mists of Winter, melancholy
And sorrowful, roll over my thoughts 
And over my heart your long burial shrouds
Of dead branches and leaves crushed
And faded, while far off, towards the horizon,
Under the damp wadding of the sleeping plain,
Amid dull and sickly echoes, the sound
Of a weary Angelus fades and wails 
Once more and dies away in the emptiness of the evening,
So lonely, so weak and timid, that a crow,
Nestled between the thick arches of an ancient voussoir,
Hearing it moan and sob, awakens
And softly replies and laments in its turn 
Across the absolute stillness that the hour brings,
And all at once falls silent, believing that in the tower
The agony is ended and the bell is dead.

Note for line 11: A voussoir (the same word in English as in French) is a wedge-shaped stone used in the construction of an arch or vault. It is hard to imagine exactly what image the poet was trying to convey here.

Text Authorship:

Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2026 by Grant Hicks, (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 Émile Verhaeren (1855 - 1916), "Les brumes", written 1882-94, appears in Poèmes, in 1. Les bords de la route, in 2. Décors tristes, no. 2, Paris, Éd. du Mercure de France, first published 1895
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2026-08-16
Line count: 16
Word count: 126