Feuillage du cœur
Language: French (Français)
Sous la cloche de cristal bleu
De mes lasses mélancolies,
Mes vagues douleurs abolies
S'immobilisent peu à peu :
Végétations de symboles,
Nénuphars mornes des plaisirs,
Palmes lentes de mes désirs,
Mousses froides, lianes molles.
Seul, un lys érige d'entre eux,
Pâle et rigidement débile,
Son ascension immobile
Sur les feuillages douloureux,
Et dans les lueurs qu'il épanche
Comme une lune, peu à peu,
Elève vers le cristal bleu
Sa mystique prière blanche.
Confirmed with First published in the revue La Pléiade, June 1886.
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 Luís de Freitas Branco (1890 - 1955), "Feuillage du cœur", 1913, published 1997 [ medium voice and piano ], from Canções Francesas - Serres chaudes, Ciclo Maeterlinckiano, no. 3, Éd. Musicoteca Lisboa [sung text not yet checked]
- by Carlos López Buchardo (1881 - 1948), "Feuillage du cœur", 1915, first performed 1915 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
- by Lucien Mawet (1875 - 1947), "Feuillage du cœur" [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
- by Gustave Samazeuilh (1877 - 1967), "Feuillage du cœur", 1898, published 1913 [ high voice and piano ], from Deux mélodies, no. 1, Paris, Éd. Durand [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Serge Verstockt (b. 1957), "Feuillage du cœur", 1995 [sung text not yet checked]
Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:
- Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Friedrich von Oppeln-Bronikowski (1873 - 1936) , "Herzgewächse" and by K. L. Ammer , "Herzgewächse" ; composed by Arnold Franz Walter Schoenberg.
- Also set in Polish (Polski), a translation by Zenon Przesmycki (1861 - 1944) , "Roślinność serca", appears in U poetów : przekłady z poezyi francuskiej, belgijskiej i włoskiej XIX–ego wieku, Warszawa, J. Mortkowicz, first published 1921 ; composed by Piotr Maszyński.
Other available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- ENG English (Grant Hicks) , "Foliage of the Heart", copyright © 2025, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Research team for this page: Harry Joelson , Joost van der Linden
[Guest Editor] This text was added to the website: 2008-02-27
Line count: 16
Word count: 72
Foliage of the Heart
Language: English after the French (Français)
Beneath the blue crystal bell
Of my weary melancholies,
My vague abolished sorrows
Come to a halt little by little:
Vegetal growths of symbols,
Dreary water lilies of pleasures,
Slow palms of my desires,
Cold mosses, slack vines.
One lily alone lifts from among them,
Pallid and rigidly frail,
Its motionless ascent
Above the mournful foliage,
And in the glow that it casts
Like a moon, little by little,
It lifts up toward the blue crystal
Its mystical white prayer.
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:
This text was added to the website: 2025-10-20
Line count: 16
Word count: 80
