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by Émile Verhaeren (1855 - 1916)
Translation © by Grant Hicks

Si morne!
Language: French (Français) 
Our translations:  ENG ENG
Choose for Diff
Se replier [toujours]1 sur soi-même, si morne!
Comme un drap lourd, qu'aucun dessin de fleur n'adorne.

Se replier, s'appesantir et se tasser
Et se toujours, en angles noirs et mats, casser.

Si morne! et se toujours interdire l'envie
De tailler en drapeaux l'étoffe de sa vie.

Tapir entre les plis ses mauvaises fureurs
Et ses rancœurs et ses douleurs et ses erreurs.

Ni les frissons soyeux, ni les moires fondantes
Mais les pointes en soi des épingles ardents.

Oh ! le paquet qu'on pousse ou qu'on jette à l'écart,
Si morne et lourd, sur un rayon, dans un bazar.

Déjà sentir la bouche âcre des moisissures
Gluer, et les taches s'étendre en leurs morsures.

Pourrir, immensément emmaillotté d'ennui ;
Être l'ennui qui se replie en de la nuit.

Tandis que lentement, dans les laines ourdies,
De part en part, mordent les vers des maladies.

Available sung texts: (what is this?)

•   M. Ravel 

View text without footnotes
1 omitted by Ravel.

Text Authorship:

  • by Émile Verhaeren (1855 - 1916), "Si morne !", appears in Les débâcles, first published 1888 [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 Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937), "Si morne!" [sung text checked 1 time]

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

  • ENG English (Laura Stanfield Prichard) , "So gloomy!", copyright © 2013, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • ENG English (Grant Hicks) , copyright © 2026, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 18
Word count: 143

To curl up always upon oneself, how...
Language: English  after the French (Français) 
Choose for Diff
To curl up [always]1 upon oneself, how dismal!
Like a heavy cloth, unadorned by any floral design.

To curl up, grow heavy and shrink
And still to shatter into dull, dark angles.

How dismal! and still to forbid oneself the urge 
To trim into banners the fabric of one's life.

To secrete among the folds one's terrible rages
And one's resentments and one's sorrows and one's errors.

Neither silken shivers, nor melting iridescences
But the points within oneself of red-hot pins.

Oh! the package that is pushed or tossed aside,
So dismal and heavy, on a shelf, in a bazaar.

Already to feel the acrid mouth of the mildew 
Clinging, and the stains spreading out in its bites.

To rot, hugely enveloped in ennui;
To be the ennui that curls up into night.

While slowly, in warped strands of wool,
From end to end, gnaw the worms of sickness.

Available sung text translations:   ← What is this?

•   M. Ravel 

About the headline (FAQ)

View text without footnotes

Translations of titles:
"Si morne !" = "How dismal!"
"Si morne!" = "How Dismal!"

1 omitted by Ravel.

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), "Si morne !", appears in Les débâcles, first published 1888
    • Go to the text page.

 

This text was added to the website: 2026-08-20
Line count: 18
Word count: 150

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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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