Death | Hand me that lute!

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by Franz Toussaint (1879 - 1955)

Translation © by Grant Hicks

La mort

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: ENG

Donnez-moi ce luth !
Je veux chanter ma douleur et la tienne,
automne, implacable automne qui ravages la campagne !
Ils m'exaspèrent, ces cygnes dédaigneux,
qui voguent sur l'étang !
Toi, fier arbre d'Aglaja,
où sont tes belles feuilles ?
Dans ce crépuscule sinistre,
tu ressembles à une lyre et tu ne chantes pas !
[Je chanterai, je chanterai]¹ la mort libératrice...

Available sung texts: (what is this?)

• H. Badings

View text without footnotes

Confirmed with Franz Toussaint, La flûte de jade, poésies chinoises, Paris, L'édition d'art H. Piazza, 1922, page 132.

¹ Badings: "Moi je chanterai, moi je chanterai"

Text Authorship:

by Franz Toussaint (1879 - 1955), "La mort" [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 Henk Badings (1907 - 1987), "La mort", 1973 [ mixed chorus ], from Cinq poèmes chinois, no. 4 [sung text checked 1 time]

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

ENG English (Grant Hicks) , "Death", copyright © 2026, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Research team for this page: Grant Hicks [Guest Editor] , Joost van der Linden [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2024-11-07
Line count: 10
Word count: 58

Death

Language: English after the French (Français)

Hand me that lute!
I want to sing of my sorrow and of yours,
Autumn, implacable Autumn, you who ravage the countryside!
They infuriate me, these supercilious swans
who sail on the pond!
You, proud tree of Aglaja,
where is your beautiful foliage?
In this dismal twilight,
you look like a lyre and you do not sing!
I will sing, I will sing of death, the liberator...

Text Authorship:

Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2026 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 Franz Toussaint (1879 - 1955), "La mort"
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2026-04-15
Line count: 10
Word count: 67