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Gounod - Au rossignol

Au rossignol

Gounod (1867)

Quand ta voix céleste prélude
Aux silences des belles nuits,
Barde aîlé de ma solitude,
Tu ne sais pas que je te suis!

Tu ne sais pas que mon oreille,
Suspendue à ta douce voix,
De l'harmonieuse merveille
S'enivre longtemps sous les bois!

Tu ne sais pas que mon haleine
Sur mes lèvres n'ose passer,
Que mon pied muet foule à peine
La feuille qu'il craint de froisser!

Ah! ta voix touchante ou sublime
Est trop pure pour ce bas lieu!
Cette musique qui t'anime
Est un instinct qui monte à Dieu!

Tu prends les sons que tu recueilles
Dans les gazouillements des flots,
Dans les frémissements des feuilles,
Dans les bruits mourants des échos.

Et de ces doux sons où se mêle
L'instinct céleste qui t'instruit,
Dieu fit ta voix, ô Philomèle!
Et tu fais ton hymne à la nuit!

Ah! ces douces scènes nocturnes,
Ces pieux mystères du soir,
Et ces fleurs qui penchent leurs urnes
Comme l'urne d'un encensoir,

Et cette voix mystérieuse
Qu'écoutent les anges et moi,
Ce soupir de la nuit pieuse,
Oiseau mélodieux, c'est toi!

Oh! mêle ta voix à la mienne!
La même oreille nous entend;
Mais ta prière aérienne
Monte mieux au ciel qui l'attend.

Alphonse de Lamartine

To the nightingale

 

When your celestial voice preludes
the silences of the beautiful nights,
winged poet of my solitude,
you do not know that I follow you!

You do not know that my ear,
hanging on your sweet voice,
is, by its harmonious wonder,
long intoxicated beneath the trees!

You do not know that my breath
dare not pass my lips,
that my silent foot barely treads
the leaf it fears to crush.

Ah! Your voice, touching or sublime,
is too pure for this lowly place!
This music which drives you
is an intuition leading to God!

To collect the sounds which you gather
among the chirping of the waves,
among the rustling of the leaves,
among the dying sounds of the echos.

And from these sweet sounds, wherein the celestial
instinct which guides you mingles,
God made your voice, o Philomela,
and you make your hymn to the night!

Ah! These sweet nocturnal landscapes,
these pious evening mysteries,
and these flowers which incline their chalices
like the chalice of a censor,

and this mysterious voice
to which the angels and I listen,
this sigh of the pious night,
melodious bird, it is you!

Oh! Blend your voice to mine!
One same ear hears us;
but your ethereal prayer
rises better to Heaven which awaits it.

© translated by Christopher Goldsack

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