On the Strand | Dusk falls like tattered

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by Claude Achille Debussy (1862 - 1918)

Translation © by Faith J. Cormier

De grève

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: ENG JPN

Sur la mer les crépuscules tombent,
Soie blanche effilée.
Les vagues comme de petites folles,
Jasent, petites filles sortant de l'école,
Parmi les froufrous de leur robe,
Soie verte irisée!

Les nuages, graves voyageurs,
Se concertent sur le prochain orage,
Et c'est un fond vraiment trop grave
A cette anglaise aquarelle.
Les vagues, les petites vagues,
Ne savent plus où se mettre,
Car voici la méchante averse,
Froufrous de jupes envolées,
Soie verte affolée.
Mais la lune, compatissante à tous,
Vient apaiser ce gris conflit,
Et caresse lentement ses petites amies,
Qui s'offrent, comme lèvres aimantes,
A ce tiède et blanc baiser.
Puis, plus rien...
Plus que les cloches attardées des flottantes églises,
Angelus des vagues, 
Soie blanche apaisée!

Text Authorship:

by Claude Achille Debussy (1862 - 1918)

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

by Claude Achille Debussy (1862 - 1918), "De grève", L. 90/(84) no. 2 (1892), published 1895 [ voice and piano ], from Proses Lyriques, no. 2, Éd. Fromont [sung text checked 1 time]

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

ENG English (Faith J. Cormier) , "On the Strand", copyright © 2003, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
JPN Japanese (日本語) (Naoyuki Okada) , "砂浜", copyright © 2025, (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: 24
Word count: 119

On the Strand

Language: English after the French (Français)

Dusk falls like tattered 
white silk on the sea. 
The waves chatter like silly
little girls let out of school 
in their lustrous frilly 
green silk dresses.

The clouds, solemn travelers, 
band together to make the next storm. 
The background is really too dark 
for this English watercolour. 
The little waves 
don't know where to go anymore, 
because here is the wicked shower 
blowing their frilly skirts away 
and frightening the green silk. 
But the all-compassionate moon 
comes to calm the gray quarrel. 
She slowly caresses her little friends, 
and they offer themselves, like loving lips, 
to her warm white kiss. 
Nothing more... 
nothing but the delayed bells of floating churches, 
Angelus of the waves, 
pacified white silk.

Text Authorship:

Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2003 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.
Contact: licenses@email.lieder.example.net

Based on:

a text in French (Français) by Claude Achille Debussy (1862 - 1918)
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 24
Word count: 118