Penitent | Autumn is like a spear thrust spread out

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by Francis Jammes (1868 - 1938)

Translation © by Grant Hicks

Pénitente

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: ENG

L'Automne est comme un coup de lance répandu,
La saison où la terre expose ses blessures
Sous les déchirements de sa robe de bure
Afin de retrouver le ciel qu'elle a perdu.

Text Authorship:

by Francis Jammes (1868 - 1938), "Pénitente", written 1923-25, appears in Les livres des quatrains, in 3. Troisième livre, no. 9 [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 Jean Papineau-Couture (1916 - 2000), "Pénitente", 1947, copyright © 1947 [ voice and piano ], from Quatrains, no. 1, Montréal, Éd. Doberman-Yppan [sung text checked 1 time]

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

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

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2017-01-24
Line count: 4
Word count: 32

Penitent

Language: English after the French (Français)

Autumn is like a spear thrust spread out,
The season when the earth exposes her wounds
Under the tatters of her homespun dress
So that she can find again the sky that she has lost.

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 Francis Jammes (1868 - 1938), "Pénitente", written 1923-25, appears in Les livres des quatrains, in 3. Troisième livre, no. 9
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2025-09-13
Line count: 4
Word count: 35