Place my brow on your breast, place your hand over my eyes

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by Henri Cazalis (1840 - 1909), as Jean Lahor

Translation © by Grant Hicks

Mets mon front sur ton sein, mets ta...

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: ENG

Chosen for Diff

Mets mon front sur ton sein, mets ta main sur mes yeux :
[Oh !]¹ cache-moi la mort, et cache-moi la vie ! 
Rien au monde que toi, rien ne faisant envie 
A mon cœur caressé par ton toucher soyeux.

Available sung texts: (what is this?)

• B. Fairchild • E. Moret

About the headline (FAQ)

View text without footnotes

Confirmed with Œuvres de Jean Lahor. En Orient, Paris, Alphonse Lemerre, 1907, page 22.

Note: This is not a translation. Al-Ghazali left no known poetry; these quatrains were written by Jean Lahor (pseudonym of Henri Cazalis), who imagined himself into Al-Ghazali's life and thought, adopting the quatrain form because it was current in Omar Khayyam's era.

¹ Moret: "Ah !"

Text Authorship:

by Henri Cazalis (1840 - 1909), as Jean Lahor, no title, appears in En Orient, in 1. Les Quatrains d'Al-Ghazali, in 1. Les amours, in 1. L'Amour de la Femme, no. 23 [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):

[ None yet in the database ]

The text above (or a part of it) is used in the following settings:

by Blair Fairchild (1877 - 1933), "Aimons-nous et rêvons", op. 40 no. 5, published 1915 [ high voice and piano ], from Quatrains d'Al-Ghazali, no. 5, London, Augener
Score: IMSLP [external link]
- View the full text. [sung text checked 1 time]
by Ernest Moret (1871 - 1949), "Aimons-nous et rêvons", published 1919 [ high voice and piano ], from Sous le ciel de l'Islam, no. 11, Paris, Éd. Heugel
- View the full text. [sung text checked 1 time]

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

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

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Grant Hicks [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2023-05-03
Line count: 4
Word count: 39

Place my brow on your breast, place your...

Language: English after the French (Français)

Chosen for Diff

Place my brow on your breast, place your hand over my eyes:
[Oh!]¹ hide death from me, and hide life from me!
Nothing in the world but you, nothing to tempt
My heart caressed by your silken touch.

Available sung text translations: ← What is this?

• E. Moret

About the headline (FAQ)

View text without footnotes
¹ Moret: "Ah !"

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 Henri Cazalis (1840 - 1909), as Jean Lahor, no title, appears in En Orient, in 1. Les Quatrains d'Al-Ghazali, in 1. Les amours, in 1. L'Amour de la Femme, no. 23
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2026-08-26
Line count: 4
Word count: 39