The Flower Bearer | My hands are no longer my own

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by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926)

Translation © by Grant Hicks

La Porteuse de fleurs

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: ENG

Elles ne sont plus à moi, mes mains,
elles sont à ces fleurs que je viens de cueillir ;
puissent-elles, ces fleurs à l'imagination si pure,
inventer un autre être à ces mains
qui ne sont plus miennes. Alors,
obéissante, je me mettrai à côté de lui,
à côté de cet être, curieuse de mes mains anciennes
et je ne le quitterai plus l'écoutant
de tout mon cœur, avant qu'il ne me dise :
ô Légère.

Confirmed with Poèmes français. Vergers. Les Roses. Les Fenêtres. Carnet de Poche. Poèmes épars, Paris: Paul Hartmann, ed., 1935, page 123.

Text Authorship:

by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926), "La Porteuse de fleurs", appears in Poèmes français, in 5. Carnet de Poche, in Les Trois Porteuses, no. 1, À Jean Cassou et à Ida Jankelevitch [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 Jake Heggie (b. 1961), "La Porteuse de fleurs", 1988 [ voice and piano ], from Trois poèmes intérieurs de Rainer Maria Rilke, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]

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

ENG English (Grant Hicks) , "The Flower Bearer", copyright © 2025, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2009-04-30
Line count: 10
Word count: 74

The Flower Bearer

Language: English after the French (Français)

My hands are no longer my own,
they belong to these flowers I've just picked;
let them contrive, these flowers with such a pure imagination,
to invent another being with these hands
that are no longer mine.  Then,
obediently, I will place myself by his side,
by the side of that being, curious about my former hands
and I will not stray from him, listening to him
with all my heart, until he says to me:
"O deft woman."

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 Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926), "La Porteuse de fleurs", appears in Poèmes français, in 5. Carnet de Poche, in Les Trois Porteuses, no. 1, À Jean Cassou et à Ida Jankelevitch
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2025-08-13
Line count: 10
Word count: 79