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It is illegal to copy and distribute our copyright-protected material without permission. It is also illegal to reprint copyright texts or translations without the name of the author or translator.

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by Claude Achille Debussy (1862 - 1918)
Translation © by Faith J. Cormier

De fleurs
Language: French (Français) 
Our translations:  ENG JPN
Dans l'ennui si désolément vert
De la serre de douleur,
Les fleurs enlacent mon coeur
De leurs tiges méchantes.
Ah! quand reviendront autour de ma tête
Les chères mains si tendrement désenlaceuses?
Les grands Iris violets
Violèrent méchamment tes yeux,
En semblant les refléter, -
Eux, qui furent l'eau du songe
Où plongèrent mes rêves si doucement,
Enclos en leur couleur;
Et les lys, blancs jets d'eau de pistils embaumés,
Ont perdu leur grâce blanche,
Et ne sont plus que pauvres malades sans soleil! -
Soleil! ami des fleurs mauvaises,
Tueur de rêves: Tueur d'illusions,
Ce pain béni des âmes misérables!
Venez! Venez! Les mains salvatrices!
Brisez les vitres de mensonge,
Brisez les vitres de maléfice,
Mon âme meurt de trop de soleil!
Mirages! Plus ne refleurira la joie de mes yeux,
Et mes mains sont lasses de prier,
Mes yeux sont las de pleurer!
Eternellement ce bruit fou
Des pétales noirs de l'ennui,
Tombant goutte à goutte sur ma tête,
Dans le vert de la serre de douleur!

Text Authorship:

  • by Claude Achille Debussy (1862 - 1918)

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), "De fleurs", L. 90/(84) no. 3 (1892-1893), published 1895 [ voice and piano ], from Proses Lyriques, no. 3, Éd. Fromont [sung text checked 1 time]

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

  • ENG English (Faith J. Cormier) , "Flowers", copyright © 2003, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • JPN Japanese (日本語) (Naoyuki Okada) , "花", 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: 29
Word count: 167

Flowers
Language: English  after the French (Français) 
In the desolate green boredom of pain's hothouse, flowers surround my heart
with their nasty stems. When will the dear hands return to delicately
untangle them from round my head? The tall purple Iris cruelly violated your
eyes by seeming to reflect them. They were the pools of reverie into which
my dreams softly dove, absorbed by their colour. And the lilies, white jets
of water with perfumed pistils, have lost their white grace and are but poor
invalids who do not know the sun. Sun! Friend of evil flowers, dream-killer,
illusion-killer, holy bread of miserable souls! Come! Come! Saving hands!
Smash the windows of lies, smash the windows of evil spells, my soul is
dying from too much sun! Mirages! Joy will never flower again in my eyes and
my hands are tired of praying, my eyes tired of crying! In an eternal crazed
noise, the black petals of boredom drip constantly on my head in pain's
green hothouse!

Text Authorship:

  • Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2003 by Faith J. Cormier, (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 Claude Achille Debussy (1862 - 1918)
    • Go to the text page.

 

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 13
Word count: 160

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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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