Here is the wood | Here is the wood which my holy angel

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by Pierre de Ronsard (1524 - 1585)

Translation © by David Wyatt

Voicy le bois

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: CHI ENG

Voici le bois que ma sainte Angelette
Sur le printemps réjouit de son chant :
Voici les fleurs où son pied va marchant
Quand à soi-même elle pense seulette.

Voici la [prée et la]¹ rive mollette,
Qui [prend vigueur]² de sa main la touchant
Quand pas à pas en son sein va cachant
Le bel émail de l’herbe nouvelette.

Ici chanter, là pleurer je la vis,
Ici sourire, et là je fus ravi
[De ses discours par lesquels je desvie :]³

Ici [s’asseoir, là je la vis]⁴ danser :
Sur le métier d’un si vague penser,
Amour ourdit les trames de ma vie.

Available sung texts: (what is this?)

• L. Gouvy

L. Gouvy sets lines 1-4, 5-8, 9, 12, 10-11, 13-14

View original text (without footnotes)

Confirmed with Choix de poésies (Ronsard), Paris, Didot, 1862.

¹ Gouvy: "prée, la"
² Gouvy: "reverdit"
³ Gouvy: "Des discours de mon amie."
⁴ Gouvy: "s'asseoir et là"

Text Authorship:

by Pierre de Ronsard (1524 - 1585) [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 Louis Théodore Gouvy (1819 - 1898), "Voicy le bois", op. 41 (Neuf Poésies de Ronsard) no. 4, published 1876, lines 1-4,5-8,9,12,10-11,13-14 [ voice and piano ], from 40 Poèmes de Ronsard, no. 4, Paris, Éd Simon Richault [sung text checked 1 time]

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

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2011-06-02
Line count: 14
Word count: 101

Here is the wood

Language: English after the French (Français)

Here is the wood which my holy angel
Makes happy during the spring with her singing;
Here are the flowers where her feet pass
When she is thinking to herself, on her own.

Here is the meadow and the languid riverbank
Which gain vigour from her hand as they touch it,
As step by step she walks, hiding in her bosom
The lovely jewels of the new-grown grass.

Here I see her singing, there weeping,
Here smiling, and there I was delighted
By her diverting conversation:

Here I see her sitting, there dancing;
On the loom of such wandering thoughts
Love weaves the threads of my life.

Text Authorship:

Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2012 by David Wyatt, (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 Pierre de Ronsard (1524 - 1585)
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2012-07-26
Line count: 14
Word count: 107