Foxglove | Friendly flower, your pink robe

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by Francis Jammes (1868 - 1938)

Translation © by Grant Hicks

La digitale

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: ENG

Fleur cordiale, ta robe rose
N'a pas son calice formé
Que déjà moins encore éclose
L'enfant se meurt d'avoir aimé.

Text Authorship:

by Francis Jammes (1868 - 1938), "La digitale", written 1923-5, appears in Les livres des quatrains, in 1. Premier Livre, no. 30 [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 Apothéloz (1900 - 1965), "La digitale", 1943 [ medium voice and piano ], from Au Jardin de Francis Jammes, no. 6, MS [sung text not yet checked]
by Jean Papineau-Couture (1916 - 2000), "La digitale", 1947, copyright © 1947 [ high voice and piano ], from Quatrains, no. 2, Montréal, Éd. Doberman-Yppan [sung text checked 1 time]

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

ENG English (Grant Hicks) , "Foxglove", 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: 20

Foxglove

Language: English after the French (Français)

Friendly flower, your pink robe 
Hasn't yet formed its calyx
When already, having blossomed even less,
The child is dying of having loved.

Translator's note: The French word calice, used in line 2 of this poem, can be translated as both "calyx" (the cup-shaped structure of leaves that surrounds and protects a developing flower) and "chalice." Here the ambiguity may be intentional: the calyx suggests a chalice that delivers the foxglove's deadly potion.

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), "La digitale", written 1923-5, appears in Les livres des quatrains, in 1. Premier Livre, no. 30
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2025-09-13
Line count: 4
Word count: 23