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March 27, 2024

Je t’aime

Ah I love you!
My lover leaves me
He doesn't want me anymore!
I throw myself on his knees, I cry, I fail! I throw myself at his knees
But there he remains unmoved
My lover doesn't want me anymore!
Yet I love it! That I like!
I love him, I love him so much!
Mmm I love you! Love you...
Still ... I love you!

La speranza al cor mi dice

Hope tells my heart
That I will know joy again.
But love’s deceit appears, and with it fears
Yet hope comes again and foretells joy to come.

L’allegro

Since the years are smiling,
Since love warms our bosoms
Let us not lose the beautiful moments
Let us gather the hours of pleasure
For what good is it to wander in thoughts of the future?
Let fools worry about the future, I want to enjoy the present.
The flood of life passes like the rapids of a river,
And who knows if we will still be down here this evening?

Lorelei

I do not know what it means
That I should feel so sad;
There is a tale from olden times
I cannot get out of my mind.
The air is cool, and twilight falls,
And the Rhine flows quietly by;
The summit of the mountains glitters
In the evening sun.
The fairest maiden is sitting
In wondrous beauty up there,
Her golden jewels are sparkling,
She combs her golden hair.
She combs it with a golden comb
And sings a song the while;
It has an awe-inspiring,
Powerful melody.
It seizes the boatman in his skiff
With wildly aching pain;
He does not see the rocky reefs,
He only looks up to the heights.
I think at last the waves swallow
The boatman and his boat;
And that, with her singing,
The Loreley has done.

Quatre chansons de jeunesse

Pantomime

Pierrot, who is no Clitandre,
Gulps down a bottle without delay
And, being practical, starts on a pie.
Cassandre, at the end of the avenue,
Sheds an unnoticed tear
For his disinherited nephew.
That rogue of a Harlequin schemes
How to abduct Colombine
And pirouettes four times.
Colombine dreams, amazed
To sense a heart in the breeze
And hear voices in her heart.

Clair de Lune

Your soul is a chosen landscape
bewitched by masquers and bergamaskers,
playing the lute and dancing and almost
sad beneath their fanciful disguises.
Singing as they go in a minor key
of conquering love and life’s favours,
they do not seem to believe in their fortune
and their song mingles with the light of the moon,
The calm light of the moon, sad and fair,
that sets the birds dreaming in the trees
and the fountains sobbing in their rapture,
tall and svelte amid marble statues

Pierrot

Good old Pierrot, watched by the crowd,
Having done with Harlequin’s wedding,
Drifts dreamily along the boulevard of the Temple.
A girl in a flowing blouse
Vainly leads him on with her teasing eyes;
And meanwhile, mysterious and sleek,
Cherishing him above all else,
The white moon with horns like a bull
Ogles her friend
Jean Gaspard Deburau

Apparition

The moon grew sad. Weeping seraphim,
dreaming, bows in hand, in the calm of hazy
flowers, drew from dying viols
white sobs that glided over the corollas’ blue.
—It was the blessed day of your first kiss.
My dreaming, glad to torment me,
grew skilfully drunk on the perfumed sadness
that—without regret or bitter after-taste—
the harvest of a Dream leaves in the reaper’s heart.
And so I wandered, my eyes fixed on the old paving stones,
when with sun-flecked hair, in the street
and in the evening, you appeared laughing before me
and I thought I glimpsed the fairy with her cap of light
who long ago crossed my lovely spoilt child’s slumbers,
always allowing from her half-closed hands
white bouquets of scented flowers to snow

Three Songs from Athena

Morning Song

Wash my hair, mother,
this last time,
the weight of it in your hands,
how the light lifts it up
Dry my hair, mother,
and comb it out,
pulling the morning’s
warmth to the ends
Mother, braid my hair,
your quick fingers turning
and turning beauty
into beauty, this last time

Leaving Home

Sun in your tomatoes,
Wind in the yellow lilies
bees secure their futures
how does the earth turn
but by gravity?
How certain I am
of loving you, papa,
and how certain,
like the bee, of leaving.
No, what do I know
of bees’ desires?
What do I know of wind?
Except it carries me
out the narrow door
defying gravity,
defying gravity.

Friends

For Sue who gave me seashells
with their echoes
For Diane and your violin—
for those lazy afternoons of arpeggios
How else could I get by?
For June whose warblers
taught me patterns
and surprises
For Maeve with your lullabies
How else could I get by?
For Barb, Liz and Nancy—
how we steamed clams
and sliced fennel tissue thin
and fed a dozen friends
For Tanya, how you let me call
at two or three; made me bread and rubbed my feet
and Margaret, so much my sister
though you weren’t
How else could I get by?

Der Hirt auf dem Felsen

When I stand on the highest rock,
Look down into the deep valley
And sing,
From far away in the deep dark valley
The echo from the ravines
Rises up
The further my voice carries,
The clearer it echoes back to me
From below
My sweetheart lives so far from me,
Therefore I long so to be with her
Over there
Deep grief consumes me,
My joy has fled,
All earthly hope has vanished,
I am so lonely here
The song rang out so longingly through the wood,
Rang out so longingly through the night,
That is draws hearts to heaven
With wondrous power
Spring is coming,
Spring, my joy,
I shall now make ready to journey