Pale hour when all sound dies!

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

Translation © by Grant Hicks

Heure pâle où se meurt tout bruit !

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: DUT ENG

Choose for Diff

Heure pâle où se meurt tout bruit !
Le monde est comme une féerie.
La robe noire de la nuit
Par le clair de lune est fleurie.

About the headline (FAQ)

Confirmed with Jean Lahor, Les Quatrains d'Al-Ghazali, Paris, Alphonse Lemerre, 1896, page 16.

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.

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. 55 [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), "Heure pâle", op. 40 no. 7, published 1915 [ high voice and piano ], from Quatrains d'Al-Ghazali, no. 7, London, Augener
Score: IMSLP [external link]
- View the full text. [sung text checked 1 time]
by Rodolphe Théophile Cahen d'Anvers, marquis de Torre Alfina (1869 - 1955), "Heure pâle", published 1906 [ medium voice and piano ], from L'Idylle persane, in the supplement to Le Figaro, July 14, 1906
- View the full text. [sung text not yet checked]

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

DUT Dutch (Nederlands) (Joost van der Linden) , copyright © 2023, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
ENG English (Grant Hicks) , copyright © 2026, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2023-05-03
Line count: 4
Word count: 26

Pale hour when all sound dies!

Language: English after the French (Français)

Choose for Diff

Pale hour when all sound dies!
The world is like a fairyland.
The black mantle of the night
The moonlight adorns with flowers.

About the headline (FAQ)

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.
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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. 55
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2026-08-27
Line count: 4
Word count: 23