Automne
Language: French (Français)
Available translation(s): ENG
À pas lents, et suivis du chien de la maison,
Nous refaisons la route à présent trop connue,
Un pâle automne saigne au fond de l'avenue,
Et des femmes en deuil passent à l'horizon.
Comme dans un préau d'hospice ou de prison
L'air est calme et d'une tristesse contenue,
Et chaque feuille d'or tombe, l'heure venue,
Ainsi qu'un souvenir, lente, sur le gazon.
Le silence entre nous marche... Coeurs de mensonges,
Chacun, las du voyage et mûr pour d'autres songes,
Rêve égoistement de retourner au port...
Mais les bois ont ce soir, tant de mélancolie
Que notre coeur s'émeut à son tour,
Et s'oublie à parler du passé sous le ciel qui s'endort,
Doucement, à mivoix comme d'un enfant mort...
Authorship:
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- ENG English (Faith J. Cormier) , "Autumn", copyright © 2001, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [
Administrator]
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 15
Word count: 120
Autumn
Language: English  after the French (Français)
Slowly, followed by the dog,
we retrace the route we know all too well.
Pale autumn is bleeding at the end of the avenue,
and mourning women pass by on the horizon.
The air is as calm and sad
as if it were in the inner courtyard of a hospice or a prison,
and each golden leaf falls, when its time has come,
like a memory, slowly, to the grass.
Silence walks between us... lying hearts,
each tired of the journey and ripe for other dreams,
selfishly longing to return to port...
But tonight the woods are so full of sadness
that our hearts are stirred in their turn
and forget themselves in speaking of the past, under the drowsy sky,
in whispers, as of a dead child...
Authorship:
- Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2001 by Faith J. Cormier, (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:
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 15
Word count: 128