Fauves las
Language: French (Français)
Ô les passions en allées,
Et les rires et les sanglots!
Malades et les yeux mi-clos
Parmi les feuilles effeuillées,
Les chiens jaunes de mes péchés,
Les hyènes louches de mes haines,
Et sur l'ennui pâle des plaines
Les lions de l'amour couchés!
En l'impuissance de leur rêve
Et languides sous la langueur
De leur ciel morne et sans couleur,
Elles regarderont sans trève
Les brebis des tentations
S'éloigner lentes, une à une,
En l'immobile clair de lune,
Mes immobiles passions.
Text Authorship:
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Ernest Amédée Chausson (1855 - 1899), "Fauves las", op. 24 no. 4 (1896), published 1910 [ medium voice and piano ], from Serres Chaudes, no. 4 [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Thomas Oboe Lee (b. 1945), "Fauves las", 2020, copyright © 2021 [ voice and piano ], from Chansons de Maeterlinck, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- ENG English (Sophie Huet) , "Lazy Beasts", copyright © 2009, (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: 16
Word count: 81
Lazy Beasts
Language: English after the French (Français)
O the passions on the paths,
The laughs and cries!
Sick and half -- closed eyes
Among fallen leaves,
Yellow dogs of my sins,
Suspicious hyenas of my hatreds
And on the pale boredom of the plains
Lay the lions of love!
In the impotence of dreams
Languid beneath the spell
Of their plain and colorless sky
They will stare without blinking
At the tempting goats
Slowly leaving one by one
In the motionless moonlight
My motionless passions!
Text Authorship:
Based on:
This text was added to the website: 2009-04-15
Line count: 16
Word count: 77
