The Poor Dead | Lovers, adorned with gold and silk

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by Henri Cazalis (1840 - 1909), as Jean Lahor

Translation © by Grant Hicks

Les pauvres morts

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: ENG

Amants, parés d'or et de soie,
Vous dont la mort a fait sa proie,
Bouches en fleurs, tendres bras nus,
Qu'êtes-vous, hélas ! devenus,
Beaux corps vêtus d'or et de soie ?

Sous la terre gisent les morts :
Nous dansons sur leurs pauvres corps,
Que dans leurs tombes l'on oublie.
Tout n'est que mystère et folie !...
Pourquoi les vivants et les morts ?

Confirmed with Jean Lahor, L'Illusion, troisième édition, revue et augmentée, Paris, Alphonse Lemerre, Editeur, 1893, p. 58.

Text Authorship:

by Henri Cazalis (1840 - 1909), as Jean Lahor, "Les pauvres morts", appears in L'Illusion, in 1. Chants de l'Amour et de la Mort, Paris, Éd. Alphonse Lemerre, first published 1875 [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 Camille Andrès (1864 - 1904), "Les pauvres morts", published [1903] [ tenor or soprano and piano ], Paris, Éd. E. Demets [sung text not yet checked]

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

ENG English (Grant Hicks) , "The Poor Dead", copyright © 2025, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2014-01-27
Line count: 10
Word count: 60

The Poor Dead

Language: English after the French (Français)

Lovers, adorned with gold and silk,
You whom death has made his prey,
Mouths in flower, delicate bare arms,
Alas! what have you become,
Beautiful bodies dressed in gold and silk?

Under the earth lie the dead:
We dance on their poor bodies,
Forgotten in their tombs.
All is naught but mystery and folly!...
Why the living and the dead?

Text Authorship:

Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2025 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 Henri Cazalis (1840 - 1909), as Jean Lahor, "Les pauvres morts", appears in L'Illusion, in 1. Chants de l'Amour et de la Mort, Paris, Éd. Alphonse Lemerre, first published 1875
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2025-06-16
Line count: 10
Word count: 60