Romance | The vanishing and suffering soul

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by Paul Bourget (1852 - 1935)

Translation © by Korin Kormick

L'âme évaporée et souffrante

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: ENG GER JPN

L'âme évaporée et souffrante,
L'âme douce, l'âme odorante
Des lys divins que j'ai cueillis
Dans le jardin de ta pensée,
Où donc les vents l'ont-ils chassée,
Cette âme adorable des lys?

N'est-il plus un parfum qui reste
De la suavité céleste
Des jours où tu m'enveloppais
D'une vapeur surnaturelle,
Faite d'espoir, d'amour fidèle,
De béatitude et de paix?...

About the headline (FAQ)

Text Authorship:

by Paul Bourget (1852 - 1935), "Romance", written 1882, appears in Les Aveux, in Amour, no. 32, Paris Éd. Alphonse Lemerre, first published 1882 [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 Claude Achille Debussy (1862 - 1918), "Romance", L. 65/(79) no. 2 (1891) [ voice and piano ], from Deux Romances, no. 2 [sung text checked 1 time]
by Charles Marie Jean Albert Widor (1844 - 1937), "L'âme des lys", op. 63 no. 4 [ high voice and piano ], from Soirs d'été, no. 4, Durand [sung text not yet checked]

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

ENG English (Korin Kormick) , "Romance", copyright © 2002, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , "Romanze", copyright © 2006, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
JPN Japanese (日本語) (Naoyuki Okada) , copyright © 2025, (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: 12
Word count: 58

Romance

Language: English after the French (Français)

The vanishing and suffering soul,
The sweet soul, the fragrant soul
Of divine lilies that I have picked
In the garden of your thoughts,
Where, then, have the winds chased it,
This charming soul of the lilies?
Is there no longer a perfume that remains
Of the celestial sweetness
Of the days when you enveloped me
In a supernatural haze,
Made of hope, of faithful love,
Of bliss and of peace?

Text Authorship:

Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2002 by Korin Kormick, (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 Paul Bourget (1852 - 1935), "Romance", written 1882, appears in Les Aveux, in Amour, no. 32, Paris Éd. Alphonse Lemerre, first published 1882
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 12
Word count: 71