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

Chosen for Diff

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)

Chosen for Diff

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